ABSTRACT
Disability studies in the United Kingdom, North America and elsewhere was founded not in wonder or out of curiosity at what it is like to be a disabled person, or to live with an impairment, but in anger. Disabled people were dissatisfied with the way that society treated them, and with their prolonged and continued exclusion from the benefits of growth that had marked the post-war years. They took exception to the growing inequality of their experience and their limited opportunities compared to their non-disabled peers. Importantly, this anger was directed not just at society, and the way it excluded disabled people, but also at the way that the social sciences in general, and medical sociology in particular, constructed disability and disabled people. The Fundamental Principles of Disability published by the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) in 1976 emerged in the course of a polemic against the Disability Alliance, which UPIAS felt was dominated by non-disabled academics such as Peter Townsend. The emergence of disability studies as a discipline saw the establishment not just of the social model, but also of emancipatory research (Oliver 1992). This was part of its manifesto as it sought to create a new approach to the study of disablement. However, as this chapter will argue, if the research task of disability studies is to emerge as more than evaluation of policy and practice for disabled people, or more than sociology, social theory or policy, politics, cultural studies or economics with a disability theme or angle, and continue to make a contribution to the emancipation of disabled people, there are many practical and theoretical problems that have to be addressed. For example, in work on direct payments or employment for disabled people, it is sometimes difficult to identify meaningful research (compared with evaluation) questions. Concepts such as independence, mainstream and inclusion are employed but rarely fully defined. We also need to explore why certain things are considered worthy of research, such as the barriers faced by disabled people, while others such as the lived experience of impairment and its role in lack of opportunity, are not. Much of disability research can tell us what we do not want and the problems that need to be solved; research that can anticipate solutions is much harder.
