No Model of Disability
At the October 2024 meeting of Kinetic, different disabled people had different ideas about models of disability. There was not a consensus for one model of disability. The view was that there should be a more detailed discussion at the next meeting in February 2025. I disagree.
Being inclusive means accepting the range of disabled opinions of models of disability, rather than imposing one model on the organisation. It is not necessary for Kinetic to have a stance on everything. Seeking to have a stance on everything is centralisation, which is not compatible with inclusion.
It may even be that the majority of disabled people don’t care about models of disability.
I propose that Kinetic does not adopt or support any models of disability.
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You’re absolutely right that different people have different ideas about disability, and I also agree that it’s likely that many disabled people don’t care what model or models we use to understand our experiences. I’d say that’s exactly why it would be useful for us to have a network discussion about this - to share our different perspectives, understand our differences and common ground, and find useful ways of talking about disability to others.
It might not be as soon as February (we have a LOT of business to get through in the first part of next year!) but sometime… But meanwhile, KiNETIC definitely isn’t ‘adopting’ the Social Model of disability… We do talk about it in ‘We Are KiNETIC’ and say we think it’s useful, but we won’t mention it at all in our Constitution, which sets out the rules about our purpose and how we work. We all need to agree on THAT, but not on everything else!