SOCIAL AND MEDICAL MODELS OF DISABILITY: IN SEARCH OF FOUNDATIONS FOR POSTPHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Abstract

During the war, the number of people with disabilities, particularly physical ones, significantly increases. This shapes society's demand for an understanding and exploration of corporeality in the context of disability studies. The aim of this article is to create a foundation for understanding disability in a post-phenomenological research framework through a critique of existing models of disability. Accordingly, the tasks are: 1) analysis of two main models of disability in Western society; 2) post-phenomenological questioning of disability through the critique of disability models. Research methods. The main methodological lens of this article is the postphenomenological approach, which is based on the approaches of M. Merleau-Ponty and D. Ihde. Research results. Arguments are given that medical and social models of disability are as far away from a comprehensive understanding of the body and physicality as possible. This happens because the body is either instrumentalized and marginalized, or subordinated to space at the level of other objects. It is time to develop a new approach in disability studies, with a focus on the person themselves and the ontology of their corporeality experience. According to the author of this article, this new approach should be postphenomenology. The first attempt was made to determine what the foundations of post-phenomenological research on disability, namely: 1) turning to the ontology of corporeality; 2) preservation of the fundamental inclusion of corporeality in being-in-the-world; 3) fundamental openness of our experience to the Other and knowledge of the world and oneself through the Other; 4) outline the new meaning of technologies in the context of the topography of experience. Discussion. The social model is currently criticized even by its creators, in particular T. Siebers, who emphasizes that a return to the body and corporeality must be made. The next step of his criticism is precisely the transition to postphenomenology. Conclusions. The postphenomenological lens of questioning brings closer to a human-centered approach in disability studies. Postphenomenology will help to form a qualitatively new model of disability that will firstly meet the needs of people with disabilities, and will not increase feelings of guilt or prejudice towards disability