Paper short abstract:

This presentation examines the strengths and limitations of the social model for capturing the disability experience within the South Asian context and the ways in which insights on the South Asian experience of disability could inform, enrich, and expand the social model.

Paper long abstract:

The last three decades have witnessed the rise of the social model of disability in the countries of the North, particularly within the UK and the US. Emerging from an increasing disenchantment with the dominant medical model and its tendency to view disability as located within the individual, the social model identifies people with disabilities as an oppressed group and implicates society as creating disability through exclusion, isolation, and lack of provision of appropriate supports (UPIAS, 1975). Within the North, the social model has precipitated changes in policy and practice. Given the past history of the transfer of western disability constructs, theories, and practices to South Asia and given the present context of globalization, it is inevitable that the social model of disability will frame the discourse in this region. However, to what extent is this model, with its origins in the North, applicable to the cultural, economic, and political realities of the disability experience of South Asians? What promises can it offer and what are its limitations? Drawing on the findings of a prior ethnographic study conducted with families of children with disabilities in Kolkata, India, and a current study in progress being conducted with Indian American families of children with disabilities in New Jersey, this presentation examines the strengths and limitations of the model for capturing the disability experience within the South Asian context and the ways in which insights on the South Asian experience of disability could inform, enrich, and expand the social model.