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In this article, the author responds to the paper by Tom Shakespeare and Nicholas Watson defending the social model in its wider context. Disability study critiques have emphasised the way in which medical sociologists' work on the experience of illness have often underplayed the influence of structures; and simultaneously how, in their desire to move away from the individualised "tragedy" model of disability, much of their own work has concentrated on structures, and rather less on the subtleties and complexities of lived experience. The Leeds Conference "Exploring the Divide" in March 1996 was organised precisely to address these issues and to see if a more sensitive rapprochement might be found between the two. Shakespeare has argued elsewhere that one of the achievements of the Disability Movement has been to separate impairment from disability. Whilst author appreciate the force of these arguments, and their grounding in disabled people's experience of marginalisation and exclusion from mainstream society, his two papers argue that attempts to treat the two as discrete entities glosses over the complexity of individual lives.

In this article, the author responds to the paper by Tom Shakespeare and Nicholas Watson that defends the social model of disability in its wider context. The WHO model has been widely used as a model of disability and continues to be the implicit model adopted in the delivery of health care. The model has been criticised in a variety of ways with resulting suggestions that it be modified or abandoned. However the model offers a useful starting point by clearly separating the concepts of "impairment" and "disability." The model proposes that disability is the result of impairment, but opens up the possibility that other factors may also influence disability. Clarification of these other factors is essential to the viability of this model. Since disability is defined in behavioural terms, it seems obvious that disability should be influenced by the same variables as influence other behaviours, including physiological, environmental, social, cognitive and emotional factors. The author has proposed that it is possible to integrate the WHO model with some of the current most strongly validated theories of behaviour.

In Disability Studies the question of ontology is establishing itself as a live issue. Whilst there are many arguments and tendencies emerging from this literature, this paper identifies and critically examines an approach to the ontological question in disability studies that is based on an appeal to frailty as a universal characteristic of humanity. The argument builds on the relatively familiar claim that everyone is only temporarily able-bodied. This approach is exemplified in recent work by Bryan Turner and by Tom Shakespeare and Nick Watson. I argue that their universalistic approach is problematic. While it may constitute a theoretical means of ameliorating the existential negativity associated with being disabled it does so at the expense of disability identity. What is required is a critical social ontology that problematises non-disablement and exposes the forms of invalidation that lie at the heart of disabling culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]