The experience of disability activism through the development of the disability movement: how do disabled activists find their way in politics?

Simoni Symeonidou

doi:10.1080/15017410802461905

Abstract

This paper reflects critically upon part of the findings of research about key activists’ experience of disability politics in Cyprus from 1966 to 2004. Disabled activists’ experience of politics is conceptualized through a critical analysis of the different stages they went through while struggling to develop the disability movement in the given social, cultural, political and historical context. Having located this research in the theoretical sphere of feminism and postmodernism I have developed a model to illustrate the strength of feminism and postmodernism in understanding disability, the contribution of feminism in explaining disability politics and the limitations of postmodernism in guiding powerful disability politics. Finally, I use this model to reflect critically on the need for theory to guide disability activism.

Highlights

In Britain, the formulation of a social model of disability (Oliver 1990) emerged to challenge traditional understandings of disability as a medical problem located in the individual, and it became a major point of reference for those writing about disability theory
The research I reflect upon in this paper aimed to explore the experience of disability and disability politics in the context of Cyprus from the beginning of disabled people’s activism in 1966 until 2004 (Symeonidou 2005)
In the mid-1960s, early forms of mobilization were marked by joint efforts of disabled and non-disabled people to locate disabled people and establish an umbrella organization to represent them

Summary

Introduction

In Britain, the formulation of a social model of disability (Oliver 1990) emerged to challenge traditional understandings of disability as a medical problem located in the individual, and it became a major point of reference for those writing about disability theory. Understanding disability as a form of social oppression, initially for the purposes of activism, led to calls for the development of a comprehensive sociology of disability marked by materialist understandings of disability (Finkelstein 1980; Oliver 1990), and followed by feminist (Morris 1991; Thomas 1999) and, more recently, postmodern and poststructural approaches (Corker and French 1999; Corker and Shakespeare 2002).

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Conclusion