Disability History Month 2022

UHDBsharon10

Hi everyone,

Any ideas for Disability History Month? 16th November - 16th December

Alex_Scope

Great question @UHDBsharon10 I've heard the theme is 'Disability, Health and Wellbeing'.

With that in mind we could think about this in terms of the impact of austerity and the pandemic, and also in terms of the impact of shared communities and shared experiences (like the community here) on our collective health and wellbeing.

Do you have any ideas of different ways to explore this year's theme?  

daresbury1978

A focus on "the impact of austerity and the pandemic" might prove too negative perhaps? There is a possible link in the stated "theme" to the "medical model/social model" debate. I read some years ago a paper about this by Dr. Tom Shakespeare who used to be a Team member at the University of Leeds Centre for Disability Studies. In that paper (as I recall) he argued that we should consider a third option i.e. the idea "ontological embodiment"  which is maybe a more 'existential' perspective and I favour that. Also, it is fifty or mote years by now since the UK disability movement got going and I wonder whether we might take a look back to recall and review the important ideas they gave to us? I certainly think that, at this point in time, we need  seriously to undertake a critical examination regarding the funding of  the more local organisations which claim to be "run by and for" disabled people as, in my experience, public funding has undermined their ability to undertake radical political activity. What do you think?