Abstract
This study has three main objectives first, to study influence of social model of
disability and human rights of disabled people approach which reflect to project, plan
and social movement of disabled people in Thailand. Second, to study interaction
between ideology and discourse in Global level with social practice and implement of
organizations in local setting which exercise over disabled people’s social life. Third, to
develop the contemporary social science research on disabled people program
This study shows that transformation in policies of the Thai state, economic and
political contexts, the discourse power of international organisations and Humanitarian
reason of Theravada Buddhism contribute to the generation of an ethic regime of the
proper body of Thai citizens. As a result, the impaired body became a ‘political object’
and problematized as ‘moral-political object’. People with an impairment in Thailand
have lived in an ambiguous situation between citizen and non-citizen, or between able
bodied and disabled bodied. Their ambiguous situations are excluded by means of an
inclusion through the technology of power in the modern Thai state. This study argues a
weak point of the social model’s dualism: the model considers that impaired body is
neutral phenomena while disability is a social construction this study discusses the
emphasis within the model that there is no pure or natural body, impaired body is not a
naturalistic and it is, in essentialist term, as pre-social and ahistory which is free from
biopolitics, and existing outside of discourse. This study shows that disabled people are
products of technology of power and biological discourse in modern Thai state
Moreover, this research reveals the ideology of human rights as the political-moral
project in global that is translated in local by associations and social activists in Thailand.
As a result, human rights as moral language and moral progress are being transformed into
a political apparatus to respond to the discourse about morality in local by Karma
ideology and rhetoric of Vedana of Theravada Buddhist. This research also shows that the
human rights of people with disabilities to establish itself to become a dominant moral
discourse has created a singular moral category. The results is that it is discrimination
against people with disabilities of some kind especially blind singers whose image is close
to the image of beggars that social activists who are active in social politics on the
concept of human rights tried to eliminate.
The finding of this study lead to the suggestion that the framework of social
science research on disabled people program should understand disabled people’s life world as the produce of interaction between Global ideology with local moral world.
Moreover, this study suggests that in order to develop the research program has to
focuses on strategies which use research process as knowledge generating tool and tactics
which emphasize on management cooperation and research cooperation
