The Frameworks

Next, we’ll be picking up some ideas and terms briefly raised in previous sections. Responding to ableism, particularly as reflected in the narrow approach of the medical model, disability scholars and activists have offered a number of critical frameworks, each broadening our ways of understanding disability. As Kumari-Campbell notes in the video on the previous page, these frameworks, sometimes referred to as models, are always in continual elaboration and refinement.

There are many different models for thinking about and with disability. Some, such as the medical and charity models, are broadly categorized as individual deficit or defect models. They define the problem of disability within the individual as an inherent functional limitation that results from disease or injury.

In response to the dominance of these models within mainstream society, disabled activists and scholars have proposed frameworks like the social model (Oliver, 1990) and Black feminist health science studies (Bailey & Peoples, 2017; Bailey & Mobley, 2016) and transnational disability theories (Kim, 2017; Nguyen, 2015; Grech & Soldatic, 2016). These critical alternative frameworks of disability emphasize how body-mind differences are shaped by a range of social forces/power relations.

For example, the social model would identify a wheelchair as an access device rather than a piece of medical equipment. How do these differing perspectives expand or transform how we think about wheelchairs and the people who use them? We will go into these kinds of questions in more depth later in this and subsequent modules.

Charity Model

Like the medical model discussed in Module 2, the charity model positions disability as an individual problem and is based on the dichotomy of fit and unfit. Disability is understood to be the consequence of a personal, tragic misfortune. By extension, disabled people are deemed deserving of special support and resources, both private and public.

Sometimes, the charity model is also oriented towards the cure or repair of disability, as in the case of medical philanthropy. For example, charities seeking support to end diseases leading to visual impairments, mobility impairments, and limb amputation garner crucial scientific research funds. In doing so, however, funding pitches rely on the promise of cure or restoration of the “able” body. Philanthropic organizations also rely on tragic and medicalized depictions of disability to inspire charitable giving, inadvertently deepening disabled people’s marginalized social and material conditions.