Developed by Michael Oliver, this model represents disability as culturally-constructed through centuries of medical thinking and knowledge systems. It argues disability concepts are deployed to attribute individual causes for systematic exclusion of certain bodies and minds. The model examines how medical discourse creates categories that justify social exclusion. It emphasizes material conditions and power structures behind disability construction.

Materialist Social Model

Disabilities have historically been constructed as biological truth, leading to medicalization and positioning disabled people's problems as discrete and ahistorical. This volume challenges this by viewing disability as culturally-constructed, emerging from interactions between individuals and institutional/social systems. The perspective treats "able-bodiedness" or "dis/abled-bodiedness" as produced by and existing in discourse rather than inherent characteristics. While not denying bodily realities of impairment, Discursive Psychology (DP) focuses on how these realities are negotiated within social practices.

Disability as Biological vs. Cultural Construction

DP challenges the reification of disability as fixed, natural, or biological truth by revealing its dynamic, social, and discursive origins. The approach shows how culturally-constructed phenomena become treated as inherent individual characteristics through discourse practices. Reification obscures the social processes through which categories like disability are created and maintained. DP makes visible the ongoing work required to sustain these categories.

Reification Critique

This refers to how human conditions and behaviors come to be defined and treated as medical illnesses requiring professional intervention. Medicalization leads to individualized diagnoses rather than social or cultural explanations for human differences. The process transforms social issues into medical problems amenable to clinical treatment. DP reveals how medicalization occurs through specific discursive practices in institutional settings.

Medicalization Process

- Disability as Biological vs. Cultural Construction
- Materialist Social Model
- Reification Critique
- Medicalization Processes

State University of New York at Binghamton

Chapter 1 sets the stage for understanding Discursive Psychology (DP) as a rigorous, qualitative methodology that scrutinizes language and interaction to reveal how disability is not a static medical condition, but a fluid, socially constructed phenomenon.

Chapter 1: Introducing Discursive Psychology as Methodology to Understand Disability

Lester, J. N. (Ed.). (2021). Discursive Psychology and Disability. Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology. Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Reference For: Discursive Psychology and Disability

Challenging Traditional Disability Constructions

- DP as Empirical Tool for Real-Time Analysis
- Naturally-Occurring Data Preference
- Detailed Transcription Systems
- Conversation Analysis Influence
- Unmotivated Looking
- Next Turn Proof Procedure

Discursive Psychology (DP)'s Methodological Contributions

- Language as Action-Oriented Practice
- Constructed Nature of Discourse
- Situated Context of All Discourse
- Discursive Action Model (DAM)

Discursive Psychology (DP): Discourse as Social Action

- Extreme Case Formulations
- Interpretative Repertoires
- Ideological Dilemmas
- Subject Positions
- Multimodal Communication

Analytical Tools and Concepts in Discursive Psychology

- Post-Cognitive Stance in Psychology
- Critical Discursive Psychology
- Disability Studies Framework

DP's Theoretical Foundations

The volume explicitly aims to bridge disciplinary gaps between DP and Disability Studies by generating intersectional scholarship. It seeks originality and renewal by combining insights from both fields through productive dialogue. The inclusion of DS scholar responses demonstrates commitment to rich, productive engagement across disciplines. This approach positions DP as providing concrete empirical evidence to inform disability debates.

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