The Persistence of High Levels of Living Alone Among Adults with Disabilities in Sweden, 1993–2011

Population Research and Policy Review - This study investigates how the probability to live alone has developed among working age individuals with and without disabilities in Sweden during the...     

The story about theater organizations, the public's approval, and the actors' identity formation in Nordic disability theater

Nordic disability theater is a relatively new and interesting field of disability research. In this article, the authors provide an overview of the field of disability theater in a Nordic context. The article is based on a comparative analysis from 3 research projects conducted in Sweden and Norway. The projects used qualitative methods and were analyzed from different theoretical perspectives. Interviews were conducted at 4 different disability theaters involving actors with hearing impairments, intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities, and mental disabilities. The aim of this article is to illustrate how the organizational settings reflect different goals and aims at the political and artistic levels. The authors will also address the relationship between the theaters and the public opinion and media. Finally, they will illustrate in what way organization, recognition, and public approval play an important role for the actors' identity formation and sense of belonging.     

Logics and discourses in disability arts in Sweden: a neo-institutional perspective

Theatre for and with people with intellectual disabilities has gradually become a more frequent and popular work arrangement within the municipal daily activities in Sweden. This article focuses on one of those theatres - Olla - and the aim is to analyse the institutional settings and normative environment surrounding the theatre and the way in which it relates to different institutional rules and expectations. Analytical implications will be drawn against neo-institutional theory and will show how Olla expresses both an artistic and a therapeutical logic, and that legitimacy is dependent on a loosely coupled formal structure between process and product, art and therapy. These logics are formulated within two different discourses, which leave Olla balancing between being a normalisation project or disability art which puts emphasis on the celebration of difference.