Organizing survival and resistance in austere times: shifting disability activism and care politics in Ontario,Canada

Following the 2008 financial crisis, all levels of Canadian government implemented austerity measures that dramatically restructured welfare, employment, and social service infrastructures. This has significantly affected how disabled people access services. We argue that this restructuring has been an impetus for new forms of disability activism and care politics in Ontario as disabled people fight for services necessary for survival. We discuss examples of politicized forms of care and resistance in Ontario, namely self-care, the Ontario Direct Funding programme, and collective forms of care. We contend that while these examples of care can be practical modes of resistance, they can all be co-opted and restructured to suit neoliberal ideologies and must therefore be continually interrogated.     

More responsibility, less control: psychiatric survivors and Welfare State restructuring

This paper is concerned with the implications of recent Welfare State restructuring for psychiatric survivors' citizenship status. Using the Province of Ontario as a case study, the paper examines the extent to which recent change in mental health care and social assistance programs has worked to facilitate or constrain survivors' ability to exercise control over their lives. Despite recognition of the importance of survivors' participation in the mental health care system in the late 1980s, recent years have seen a return to a more traditional treatment paradigm characterized by professional control. Concurrently, restructuring of social assistance programs has led to a decline in the real value of income supports and growing pressure on informal support networks. As a result, psychiatric survivors are increasingly held responsible for their own material well-being and public conduct, but are less able to exercise control within everyday life.     

Vestiges of the medical model: a critical exploration of the Ontario Disability Support Program in Ontario,Canada

Although ample literature exists on workfare in Ontario, Canada, research on the social assistance programme for disabled people, the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), is relatively scant. What we do know points to similar shortcomings. We present a critical disability study considering four policy domains to explore how disabled people are identified and accommodated in Ontario. Discussing the principles of universal design, we argue for policy design that meets the needs of as many individuals as possible, while accounting for significant human variability. We conclude that the ODSP, in failing to adopt a rights-based framework, violates the dignity and rights of disabled people.     

Internal Borders as Naturalized Political Instruments

This article explores how internal borders can become naturalized political instruments that are heavily implicated in the extension of state control over rural populations and rural landscapes. It shows how seemingly innocuous instruments such as national parks and hunting and sport fishing regulations can be utilized to create essentialist ecological arguments for the extension of class and urban-based centers of power. Specific examples of these forms of control are illustrated with material from island Newfoundland to show how neo-liberal agendas have been implemented in the name of ecological conservation. These processes create serious disruptions in the historic political ecology of rural areas and obfuscate the anti-ecological practices of contemporary capitalism and neo-liberal forms of government.     

Consumer‐directed personal assistance and ‘care’: perspectives of workers and ventilator users

‘Consumer‐directed personal assistance’ has been a central tenet of the North American Independent Living Movement since its inception. There is, however, surprisingly little research that explores how consumer‐directed assistance gets played out in practice. We conducted a qualitative study that explored the relationships between disabled ventilator users and their personal support workers (PSWs) in supportive housing environments in Ontario, Canada. The results show that while all participants agreed that they adhered to the philosophies of ‘independent living’ embedded in ‘consumer‐directed personal assistance’, how this was understood and enacted varied considerably. Narrow interpretations focused on the task‐oriented aspects of PSWs’ work, while broader interpretations included interpersonal aspects of care, respect and mutuality. We discuss how a conceptualization of consumer‐directed personal assistance can be elaborated to accommodate a notion of ‘care’ while retaining the core tenets of the independent living philosophy.     

Personal assistance from family members as an unwanted situation,an optimal solution or an additional good? The Swedish example

The aim of this article was to explore how users experienced and managed personal assistance from family members who are employed as personal assistants. Seventeen users of personal assistance provided by one or several family members, often in combination with external personal assistants, participated. Thematic qualitative interviews were conducted. The participants were between 19 and 58 years old, and were living with various impairments: mobility, sensory and/or learning disabilities. The results showed that personal assistance from family members could both promote and be a barrier to disabled people’s control over their own lives and participation in society. It became evident that the situation could have both advantages and disadvantages for both parties, which puts the focus on the interdependency between the participants and their family assistants. However, the results also points to a potential risk that the welfare state (re)passes its responsibilities back on to disabled people and their families.     

‘Now I’d like to sleep with Rachael’ – researching sexuality support in a service agency group home

Many intellectually disabled people living in agency services require significant forms of support to live safe and satisfying sexual lives. Research reveals that despite support personnel working in service systems now holding largely positive attitudes towards sexuality assistance, proactive practice is rarely initiated. This article probes what might lie within this attitude/assistance gap. This investigation reveals a complex picture of practices that rely on intellectually disabled people showing conformation to a ‘couple doing normal’ ideal, so as to be judged capable of being supported. It examines how wider social locations of meaning related to ‘intellectual disability’ and ‘sexuality’ might substantiate these judgement calls. The degree to which it can be said that worker’s own attitudes and values underpin their reluctance to provide support is then explored. Finally, why researchers and practitioners might need to reappraise the complex interactions that shape worker’s practice in this area is discussed.     

Moral codes of mothering and the introduction of welfare-to-work in Ontario

In this paper, I trace how the reform of social assistance in Ontario, especially the post-1990s enforcement of lone mothers' employability via welfare-to-work programs, parallels shifts in dominant moral codes of mothering, from "mother-carer" to "mother-worker." Additionally, I use this case as an entry point to consider the implications of public and policy allegiance to these moral codes for all mothers. The central argument I make is that the introduction of welfare-to-work programs in Ontario did not occur in a neoliberal state-sanctioned vacuum but also involved the circulation of ideas about moral mothering outside of policy into policy.     

Uneven Divestment of the State: Social Reproduction and Sex Work in Neo-developmentalist Argentina

Abstract

Sex work has been identified as an important dimension of the ‘survival circuits’ which have developed in the majority world in the context of neo-liberalisation, as a response to the deepening misery of the Global South. Yet while much research has explored the role of sex work in contexts of ‘neo-liberal’ regimes of capital accumulation, few have paid sustained attention to sex work in regimes which are not purely ‘neo-liberal’. Drawing on data with sex workers across 10 cities in Argentina gathered between 2007 and 2014, this article examines multiple spaces of sex workers' lives, including the workplace, the home, and the state in a context of what has been dubbed ‘neo-developmentalism’. It argues that sex work contributes multiple forms of value and subsidies for the state and capital. First, sex work provides a subsidy in the form of the provision of ‘employment’; second, female sex workers provide unwaged reproductive labour in the family; and third, in the labour movement. Yet despite these three contributions to the reproduction of the working class and therefore of capital, the state undermines sex workers' capacities through violence and sustained repression. The article concludes that the neo-developmentalism has led to ‘uneven divestment of the state’ in the reproduction of particular sections of the working class, namely those outside the formal and ‘productive’ sectors.     

"Women and disability don't mix]" Double discrimination and disabled women's rights

Oxfam's experience with groups of disabled people has revealed that gender affects how disabled people are treated in various cultures. This experience runs counter to the often voiced (even by a consultant hired by Oxfam) assumption that gender analysis serves only to confuse any analysis undertaken of disability-based circumstances. This assumption is echoed in the disability movement itself where activists fear fragmentation through the introduction of gender analysis. Thus, gender is not yet understood as a factor which affects every aspect of life including race, class, ethnicity, caste, and disability. Because 75% of the 250 million disabled women in the world live in developing countries, development programs must consider the specific needs and rights of disabled women who suffer from double discrimination and are more likely than disabled men to live impoverished and isolated lives which lead to depression and despair. In many societies, disabled women, but not disabled men, lose their rights to marriage, family life, education, and health care. Mothers of disabled children are stigmatized, and fathers tend to "blame" defective genes on the mothers and to ignore their disabled offspring. These factors combine to make it difficult to improve the status and livelihoods of disabled women through development work. Disabled women activists have also voiced complaints about their lack of access to the preparatory meetings for the Fourth UN Women's Conference, but disabled women intend to use the Conference to lobby for their rights and to call for scrutiny of health policies which discriminate against the disabled.     

Searching for Local Solutions: Making Welfare Policy on the Ground in Ontario

Over recent decades welfare dependency has played a powerful role in defining the welfare “problem” and in passing appropriate “solutions.” One result has been the proliferation of short-term, low-cost employment programs and training programs that have emerged as critical sites for challenging and reforming the attitudes and behaviors of welfare recipients. By exploring work-readiness programs in four communities in Ontario, Canada, we provide insight into how these programs relate to the lived realities of those compelled to attend them. The research shows how dependency discourse informs program rules and content, raising expectations about both the benefits and the immediacy of work. This focus risks individualizing blame and ignoring the structural realities of labor markets and the systemic forces that create poverty and unemployment. Although the particular empirical focus is on Ontario, the approaches used and their outcomes resonate with strategies that are evident wherever neoliberalism has made its mark.     

Disabled Women and Reproductive Rights

Both the women's and disability rights movements have paid scant attention to the concerns of disabled women, especially involving sexuality, reproductive freedom and mothering. Although their concerns may seem opposite of the women's movement's primary agenda, they are based on the same position: women must not be defined solely by biological characteristics and have the right to make decisions about their bodies and lives. Disabled feminists often support 'reproductive rights', but also have different perspectives on abortion and reproductive technologies than non-disabled feminists. The literature indicates that the reproductive rights of disabled women are constrained by: the assumption that disabled women are asexual; lack of reproductive health care, contraception, and sexuality information; and, social resistance to reproduction and mothering among disabled women. Disabled women are at risk for a range of undesirable outcomes, including coercive sterilization, abortion or loss of child custody.     

Contemporary Research on Social Movements and Protest in Latin America: Promoting Democracy, Resisting Neoliberalism, and Many Themes in between

This essay outlines how research on Latin American social movements has evolved since the late 1980s. Emphasis is given to two topics. First, the essay examines how Latin American social movement research has historically been oriented toward social movement theories that emerged out of the study of European movements and, to a lesser extent, movements in the United States. At the same time, it discusses how the unique historical and contextual factors of Latin American societies have repeatedly been found to defy adequate explanation by these theories. Second, the essay outlines five major themes that characterize the Latin American social movement literature: the dynamics of movements in relation to transitions to democracy, and to neo-liberal economic reforms, as well as transnational movement dynamics, indigenous movements, and women's movements.     

Repositioning mothers: mothers,disabled children and disability studies

In this article we set out to review the ways in which mothers of disabled children have been portrayed within disability studies and the more broader academic literature. We argue that within disability studies mothers of disabled children occupy a liminal position because they are often not disabled and yet they can experience forms of disablism. Their experiences can differ markedly from the experiences of mothers of non‐disabled children and yet the consequences and outcomes of these experiences, such as developing a ‘special competence’ is largely overlooked. Mothers can work to effect change on behalf of their children and, in some cases, for disabled people more generally, however, this role of activist mother is largely undervalued. The review of literature presented here leads us to conclude that further research needs to be undertaken exploring and highlighting the ways in which mothers of disabled children negotiate, manage and approach their daily lives, operating within what are described by feminist scholars as oppressive mothering ideologies and disabling environments.     

Managing everyday (in)securities: Normative values,emotional security and symbolic recognition in the lives of Russian rural elders

Qualitative studies of ageing have called for attention to be paid to the diverse experiences of older people and to their agency in negotiating opportunities and constraints. A lack of research into the experiences and subjectivities of rural elders has been noted. Yet, the majority of research concerning elderly people in contemporary Russia continues to treat old age as a category and focus on particular practical and material forms of assistance available to pensioners. This article, aims to contribute to the small but growing body of ethnographic studies which shed light on the lives of elderly people in Russia as subjects in their own right. Based on ethnographic fieldwork from rural Siberia, the article explores the ways in which elderly people experience and interpret day-to-day (in)securities, forms of care and social support. In doing so the article explores three key questions: Firstly, how do lived realities, both past and present, and normative values of rural life intersect in elderly people's experiences of (in)security in post-socialist contexts?; Secondly, what forms of assistance do older people view as legitimate in their everyday lives? In particular, how are emotional exchanges and interpersonal connections interpreted and what securities do they bring?; Thirdly, what is the significance of symbolic support and recognition for elderly people and how do these draw on practices and frameworks from the socialist past?     

Disability and sex work: developing affinities through decriminalization

This article argues that strong policy frameworks are required to support the health and well-being of sex workers, disabled people, and disabled sex workers. Through an examination of the context of sex work in Canada, we articulate the flaws of sex work criminalization and the persistent barriers that criminalization creates. Our analysis of the intersection of disabled sexuality and access to sexual services identifies how the sex industry can aid in the flourishing of the erotic lives of disabled people. The article culminates in a discussion of the benefits of sex work decriminalization for sex workers, disabled people, and disabled sex workers.     

Disabled people, the reserve army of labour and welfare reform

This paper is concerned with explaining why in contemporary society there has been a number of changes to income maintenance and labour market policy for disabled people. Taking a regulation approach theoretical framework it engages with the debate about whether disabled people can be considered to be part of the reserve army of labour. Rejecting previous broad-brush approaches that seem to suggest that all disabled people are part of the reserve army, it argues that the policy changes have been aimed at reconstructing non-employed disabled people as an important part of the reserve army in a period when labour markets are becoming tighter. In this sense disabled people are crucial to New Labour's regulation of neo-liberal accumulation that is structured through a contradiction between economic stability and increasing participation in paid employment.