This article engages with debates about the UK Disabled People s Movement s Big )dea the social model of disability -positioning this as an oppositional device This concept is adapted from the work of the art activist and theorist Brian Holmes, elaborated using insights from Foucault and others The model s primary operation is introducing contingency into the present facilitating disabled people s resistance-practices. We recognise, however, that the device can operate in a disciplinary manner when adopted by a machinery of government. Whilst our primary goal is to understand the character and operation of the social model, by providing a more general definition of an oppositional device as the concrete operation of technologies of power, we also propose a concept potentially useful for the analysis of the resistance-practices of activists involved in a wide variety of struggles. This concept may thus have implications for wider social and political analysis.
Keywordssocial model of disability; oppositional device; technology; resistance; social movements; biopower.The social model of disability as oppositional device.
Points of Interest This article is a fresh intervention into debates about the Big )dea of the UK Disabled People s Movement the social model of disability. It considers the social model of disability as an oppositional device The concept of an oppositional device is adapted from the work of the art activist and theorist Brian (olmes elaborated using Michel Foucault s concepts of technology, resistance and bio-power. Whilst others have argued that the social model should be understood as a tool we argue that the concept of an oppositional device has greater relevance for sociological analysis when seeking to understand the operations of the model.
In this article we explore and develop the utility for social movement studies of Michel Foucault's conceptualization of heterotopia. Informed by Foucault's theorizing, we propose a heuristic typology of social movement heterotopias. Five heterotopia 'types' are considered: 'contained', 'mobile', 'cloud', 'encounter' and 'rhizomic'. Each has particular attributes, but all challenge normal, routine politics. They do so by being, from the perspective of state and capital, either in the 'wrong' place, moving in the 'wrong' way, or involving the 'wrong', connections, affinities or organization. These are 'constructed-types', proposed for the purpose of description, comparison and prediction. These social movement heterotopias are different types of space that facilitate practices of resistance and transgression. We situate Foucault's writing on heterotopia at a pivotal moment in his intellectual career, when he became increasingly concerned with how particular mechanisms for modulating the creative force of resistance/power are invented, the types of bodies they craft and the politics they make possible. We propose an interpretation of heterotopia that relates it to his later work on power, resistance and freedom, and the interplay of his ideas with those of Gilles Deleuze.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.