History & models of disability Psychological, Social and Cultural Aspects of Disability Week 2 – February 25, 2020 History of disability • Remember: Impairment disability; not a social category until 18th century • Problems faced by researchers writing the history of disability Limited primary source evidence, most of which focusing on the service delivery Descriptions from the standpoint of professionals, lack of recorded accounts by disabled people; «nothing about us without us» Lack of cross-disability perspective that depicts historical interconnections across the full spectrum of mental, physical, and sensory disability (Braddock & Parish, 2001) Discussion • Why do you think mental disorders are considered as disabilities? Antiquity • Prehistory Part of the social order well before the evolution of humans Caused by injuries, but also disabling arthritis, and other chronic impairments Individual accommodations (using teeth to hold objects); group living providing aid to adaptation; care by other members; possibility to live up to adulthood in some contexts • Old Testament (Classical Era; 1600-400 BC) Charitable obligation to people with disabilities; at the same time, disability as a punishment from God. As prostitutes and menstruating women, unclean and prhibited from making sacrifices as priests Birth of children with impairments predicting future events for a community (Braddock & Perish) Antiquity • Ancient Greece and Rome Impairments and deformities were prevalent due to diseases, wars, poor prenatal care, malnutrition and injury Congenital deformities as signs of anger of gods, infants with impairments murdered for economic reasons or as a sacrifice Public and monetary support available for those who cannot work, but proof that they truly were economically needy was necessary; many people with impairments working and earning Money Rights & restrictions: Deaf people cannot marry; deaf people without speech are similar to people with mental and intellectual disabilities, and children, so, they cannot decide for themselves (Braddock & Perish) Middle Ages • Intellectual disability, mental illness, deafness, and epilepsy having supernatural or demonological causes Cures based on religious ideas about exorcism, not amenable to contemporary treatment Imprisonment, torture, and execution of witches – including disabled persons, especially those with mental illness were disproportionately affected by the witch craze (Braddock & Perish) Middle Ages • Compassion and Support The relationship between poverty and disability; malnutrition and infectious diseases contributing higher rates of impairment; being burden to their families. Begging as a solution; offering opportunities to wealthier citizens to do good Support by family members, neighbors, employers, charities, and begging Between 13th and 17th century, the differentiation of intellectual disability and mental illness (idiots vs. lunatics) - more than demonology in the etiology Protect the person and property of individuals with mental illness Take custody and profits generated from lands owned by «idiots» • Residential institutions Quarantine of people with Hansen’s disease (leprosy) turning into segregated facilities to address the issues presented by people with disabilities; later being converted to privately operated madhouses for people with mental illness and intellectual disability (Braddock & Perish) Through • th 18 century A shift in understanding the etiology of disabilities – biology Cures included voluntary beatings of the head, ingesting a mountain goat’s brain, dropping the solution made of fried earthworms with goose grease • Education of deaf persons, beginning in Spain and Turkish Ottoman court – useful contribution to society, blind children in France. • Change in attitudes toward poverty, from blessed state to a curse; further marginalization of people with disabilities; increased responsibility to families and local communities • Enlightenment: Changes in the relationship between humans, society, & God – capability to intervene «natural order», human beings and society can be perfected • Institutional care and medicalization becoming more prevalent (Braddock & Perish) 19th century • Freak shows • Eugenics • Characterized as the century of institutions and interventions Schools and residential institutions for persons with physical disabilities, deafness, blindness, mental illness, and intellectual disability Medical model - Professionals in charge of treatment, education, and life decisions Opportunities to develop group identities (Braddock & Perish) th 20 century • Eugenics era gaining momentum, segregation, prohibitions on marriage and procreation by people with disabilities • Forced sterilization of institutional residents – removal of the ovaries «to cure» women with a wide range of conditions despite the empiral evidence to the contrary Germany: between 300.000-400.000 persons with disabilities were sterilized, majority of which are people with intellectual disabilities + between 200.000275.000 persons were murdered With the help of health professionals and psychiatrists Denmark, Sweden, Iceland (Braddock & Perish) • https://youtu.be/dBkJUIp5u10 th 20 century • Vocational rehabilitation for veterans with disabilities • The US: compensation laws for persons who became disabled while working • Provision of necessary training to successfully reenter the workforce • Importance of individually fitting devices, as opposed to mass-producing • Emergence of family, community, and consumer models Authorization of the payment for the care of persons with intellectual disabilities in family homes Improved support by community-based mental health programs, as a result of the documentation of brutal conditions in mental health hospitals Foundation of Nation Federation of the Blind, the first consumer advocacy organization for blind persons – opposing nonblind leadership in the society; organizations of friends and parents of people with disabilities (Braddock & Perish) Capitalism, industrialization, & urbanization • People with disabilities were not entirely excluded from agriculture or smallscale industries and could work at homes, fields, and small studios, in more flexible conditions. Capitalism and industrialization do not allow these Workplaces are designed based on the needs of the majority • Rise of the capitalism and industrialization has separated home from workplace, increasing barriers for disabled people coupled with problematic built environment Excluding disabled people from city centers • Disabled people are seen as individuals who cannot fulfill their duty to work, becoming burdens to the community they belong, and who are in need of compassion and mercy from others Normality & disability • The problem is normality is constructed to create the problem of «disability» • What is «normal» anyway? Until the late of 19th century, «normal» was used for the items that has an appropriate angle, not for people In 1894, the first time with a meaning of «appropriate to common standards»; emergence of statistics as a means of describing population • The beauty has shifted from «ideal» to «normal»; deviances from normality were coded as ugly, unpleasant, unacceptable, increasing individual interventions to correct or collective interventions to eliminate «abnormalities», as it is the case in eugenics • The effects on the living spaces, architecture, and city planning Social model of disability • «In our view, it is society which disables physically impaired people. Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments, by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society. Disabled people are therefore an oppressed group in society.» (UPIAS, 1975) • The distinction between disability (social exclusion) and impairment (physical limitation); emphasis on oppression in the society • Disability is a social construct, or social creation, rather than a individual deficit Barrier removal, anti-discrimination legislation, independent living, and other responses to social oppression • Non-disabled people and organizations are the causes or contributors to the oppression of disabled people • Effective politically, instrumentally, and psychologically Social model of disability Medical Model Social Model Personal tradegy – personal problem Social oppression – social problem Individual cure Social movement Professional domination Individual and collective responsibility Expertise Experience Adjustment Affirmation (of identity) Care Rights Control Choices Policies Politics Individual adjustment Social change Social model of disability • Neglect of impairment as an important aspect of disabled people’s lives Bio-psycho-social model; phenomenology & lived body experience, Foucauldian understanding of body, emphasizing aspects of medicine, history, and power relations • Difficulty in distinguishing the impact of impairments and social barriers Interaction of individual bodies and social environments – depression & disability • Barrier-free utopia – implicit in social model thinking «an aeroplane is a mobility aid for non-flyers in exactly the same way as a wheelchair is a mobility aid for non-walkers» Disabled people vs. women, LGBTQI+, racial and ethnic minorities Pride – celebrating disability is harder than it is to celebrate Blackness • Disability as a complex and universal phenomenon – not just a minority issue. Other models of disability Model Definition Tragedy-charity model Disabled people are seen as victims, deserving pity from others. They need fund-raising activities & care. Religious-moral model Disability is a punishment or an affliction for future spiritual reward. The solution is Economic model Disability is defined by person’s inability to participate in work and its economic consequences for the individual, employer and the state Minority model Disability is a social category that shares common experiences, emphasizing negative attitudes and social barriers Human-rights model Disability is about community membership and fair access to social activities such as employment, education, and recreation.
