Creating Disability Studies | Conversations with Dr Theo Blackmore #17 w/ Prof. Colin Barnes (Pt. 2)

Conversations with Dr Theo Blackmore

This is the second part of Theo's conversation with Professor Colin Barnes, the leading figure in establishing the study of disability politics, sociology and the social model in the UK and globally.

Colin talks about how historically, disability was (can still be) perceived as a medical issue through the medical model, how it became politicised and the reappraisal of disability as society's failure to address disabled people's needs.

Colin argues that the whole point of what disability studies was about was using academic academic frameworks to produce research which had a purpose. For Colin, Disability Studies at Leeds is simply about putting theory policy into practice because this course is about giving you the skills to use knowledge to for the benefit of disabled people. he states ''we tried to do was get disabled people involved in discussions of disability''. Colin and others at the University put a primary focus on making the courses as accessible as possible for their students.