Personal Independence Payments,welfare reform and the shrinking disability category

The question of who counts and how we construct just who can ‘be disabled’ is central to our concerns in disability studies. As Stone makes clear, disability is exactly what a state deems it to be; the very malleable nature of the category has been exploited to widen or more commonly to narrow just who counts as disabled. This article will apply and adapt Stone’s thesis to current plans to revise the Personal Independence Payment extra costs benefit. Using official and disabled people’s narratives, the article will make clear the force with which new definitions of disability are being put forward. This process arguably risks doing state violence to a number of disabled people. These reforms have also used the language of independence in a way that fundamentally distorts the origins and potential of the term in an enabling society.     

Sustainable lifestyles for all? Disability equality,sustainability and the limitations of current UK policy

In recent years, various environmental threats have been highlighted in relation to disability. Growing knowledge of the effects of climate change and particular impacts on disabled people have been highlighted by a number of authors, including a recent critique of disabled people’s ‘vulnerability’ with respect to environmental hazard. This article focuses on the issue of citizen involvement with climate change mitigation – and more broadly individual and household-level efforts to reduce our impact on the environment. These more mundane aspects of climate change mitigation, for example through transitions to more sustainable lifestyles, also have significant implications for disabled people. The article argues that disability equality is a key component of sustainability. Limitations are demonstrated in policy designed to address these issues using the example of current UK policy, and it is suggested that policy approaches to sustainability should also be a concern of disability studies.     

‘BANAL VIOLENCE‘? THE EVERYDAY UNDERPINNINGS OF COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE

Outbursts of collective violence are often (understandably) met by expressions of outrage or condemnation. ‘How is it,’ accounts muse, ‘that ordinary people can commit such atrocities?’ This article argues that an exclusive focus on the violent act can contribute little to our understanding. Instead, it seeks to elucidate the routine processes and actions that serve to render violence acceptable (even banal) as a mode of action. Exclusive identities and a powerful rhetoric of honour, pride, and shame persuade people that violence is either desirable or even necessary in a given context. Following Billig's account of banal nationalism, I argue that grasping these mundane day-to-day processes is essential for an understanding of collective violence. The article draws on research amongst caste-based movements in South India to support this argument.     

Explanatory models for disability: perspectives of health providers working in Malawi

Health providers’ understanding of disability determines how disabled people are treated, and hence it is imperative to address conceptualisations of disability, as this will contribute to better opportunities and realisation of human rights for disabled people. This article will use data from a qualitative study exploring conceptualisations of disability by 22 health service providers from the total health care system in Malawi, including the professional sector (e.g. medical doctors and nurses) and the folk sector (healers and indigenous practices). We will discuss how these perceptions influence the lives of disabled people, using the case of a health service user with physical and speech impairment as an example. Our data show that health providers largely conceptualise disability according to the medical model for disability, contributing to the exclusion of disabled people. The bio-psycho-social model for disability, largely absent as an explanatory model for disability among our informants, is the most inclusive and rights based.     

From ‘for’ to ‘of’: a typology of Maltese disability organisations

The main aim of this article is to adapt the Typology of Disability Organisations that Oliver devised, and subsequently developed further in 1990, to a different context, in this case the Maltese disability sector. The paper first traces the history of the disabled people’s movement and presents Oliver’s Typology, which makes a clear distinction between organisations for and of disabled persons. The article then highlights the main characteristics of the Maltese disability sector and develops the Typology of the organisations operating within that sector. It shows how it is non-disabled people that are mostly in control of disability organisations, and suggests ways in which there can be a stronger movement towards the development and strengthening of disabled people’s organisations. The article shows how Oliver’s Typology can be used flexibly and adapted to various contexts. It also shows how drawing up a Typology of Disability Organisations can shed light on the environment within which these organisations operate, identifying areas of strength and possible areas for growth.     

Autonomy in long‐term care: a need,a right or a luxury?

Doyal and Gough’s theory of human need highlighted that personal autonomy is a universal need and human right, essential for well‐being. In applying their theory to older disabled people in the UK the author suggests that their ‘minimally autonomous’ threshold would exclude some older people in long‐term care who still have a fundamental need for autonomy or, alternatively, extant autonomy. The disability movement has highlighted that independent living is fundamental to achieving self‐determination for disabled people and debate on equality and caregiving emphasises the autonomy of carers. However, there is a lack of recognition in both academic research and government policy of autonomy as a need and right of older disabled people. The author argues that autonomy is a human right of older people living in long‐term care settings, but that social rights are necessary to facilitate their autonomy.     

Orientating disability studies to disablist austerity: applying Fraser’s insights

Many disabled people in Britain have experienced profound challenges brought about by a government policy programme characterised by ‘austerity’. Drawing on the work of Fraser and Polanyi, this article explores new ways in which disability studies can become theoretically orientated to the task of explaining and challenging what has become an issue of overbearing importance for many disabled people. It is argued that Fraser’s notion of bivalency encapsulates the combination of cultural and economic challenges which characterise ‘disablist austerity’. Fraser’s development of Polanyi’s work is used to argue that disability studies should be orientated to large-scale economic challenges as well as cultural and discursive concerns that are more often the object of study in the field.     

Being an inclusive researcher: seeking questions,raising answers

Abstract

In this article, I reflect on three incidents that occurred in my inclusive research work. As a conceptual framework, I use Bourdieu’s call for a reflexive sociology. My reflection is informed by the principles of the disabled people’s movement, especially giving primacy to the experiences and voice of disabled people. It is also informed by the strong link between the disabled people’s movement and disability studies, which requires academics (including non-disabled ones like myself) to be attentive to their activist role. Making sure that this role is carried out effectively, I argue, entails considering the various factors that make our work possible, and being attentive to the impact of our work. It also entails asking questions, of ourselves and others, and being especially attentive to questions that would go unasked unless we stop to reflect about our work, and the possible answers that these reflections can lead to.     

Application of the International classification of functioning,disability and health in Taiwan: victory of the medical model

Since July 2012, eligibility for disability benefits and services in Taiwan has been assessed based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. This study examines disabled people’s experiences of this new assessment system: does it incorporate the social model or a multidimensional understanding of disability and assess the needs of disabled people adequately? In-depth interviews were employed with 24 disabled persons to answer these questions from the perspective of disabled people. The findings show that the new assessment model is still medicalised: social roles and social participation are not considered, the assessment process is dominated by professionals, users’ perspectives are not included and only those who are assessed to have a high level of disability are satisfied with the new system while many others would prefer the old assessment system. These findings have relevance for the analysis of needs assessments of disabled people in different countries.     

Contesting disabling conditions of life in the Global South: disability activists’ and service providers’ experiences in Guyana

This article addresses an important gap in our understanding of issues of impairment and disability, namely challenges facing disabled activists and service providers in the majority world context of the developing nation of Guyana. The article argues that developing a southern standpoint on impairment, disability, disability activism and service provision requires a reframing of disability issues as matters of distributive justice and not only human rights. Challenges facing disability activists and service providers in Guyana included trying to combat internalized ableism, financial and cultural barriers to political engagement and visibility, tensions in claiming or rejecting disabled identities and difficulties in accessing foreign aid funding for disability initiatives. The article concludes by stressing the importance of rethinking how we do disability studies so that it allows critical analysis of the dynamics of a global capitalist corporeal class order in the context of the majority world.     

Reporting disability in the age of austerity: the changing face of media representation of disability and disabled people in the United Kingdom and the creation of new ‘folk devils’

Following its election in 2010 the UK’s Coalition Government has sought to implement radical restructuring of disability-related benefits justified by reference to the financial crises of 2007/08. In this article we examine how these changes have impacted on coverage of disability in the UK media comparing and contrasting coverage of disability in newspapers in 2010/11 with a similar period in 2004/05. Our analysis suggests that disabled people have become a ‘folk devil’ and that there has been a significant change in the way that disability is reported. Newspaper coverage in 2010/11 was less sympathetic and there was an increase in articles that focused on disability benefit and fraud, and an increase in the use of pejorative language to describe disabled people. An audience reception study suggests that this coverage is having an impact on the way that people think about disabled people.     

Understanding Social Movements: theorising the disability movement in conditions of late modernity

This article draws upon qualitative research carried out by the author and funded by the ESRC. One of the central aims of this research was to investigate the nature of the UK disability movement's ‘struggle’ and to evaluate critically the idea that it is a ‘new’ social movement. Consideration of the disability movement in relation to both ‘new’ social movements and to wider social movement theorising has suggested that it may not be possible to understand this movement, entirely, by using any of the existing models. This article concludes by outlining the possible starting point for a new approach to understanding the disability movement based upon forging a closer link between citizenship and social movement theory and upon a focus on the nature of engagement. Empirical evidence from the research is included in this article in the form of quotations from respondents, all of whom are/were members of organisations that are run by disabled people. All respondents' names have been removed to maintain their anonymity.     

Neoliberal disorientations: changing landscapes of disability and governance in India

This article delves into questions of neoliberal disorientations experienced by disabled people in the context of a participatory development self-help group project from the World Bank in south India. I explore ways in which neoliberal development regimes produce exclusionary forms of inclusion by producing subjects who are ‘able-disabled’. I ethnographically examine ‘who gets counted’ and ‘what gets counted’ within the neoliberal governance framework, and what remains outside. Deconstructing participatory development approaches from a critical disability perspective, the article sheds light on processes of inclusion through exclusion in the neoliberal framework of governance. It highlights what is at stake for disability futures in the context of austerity in the Global South.     

‘We do not have chiefs who are disabled’: disability,development and culture in a continuing complex emergency

In 2011 The World Health Organization declared disability an international development priority. Yet disability and disabled people are barely visible in the Millennium Development Goals. Exploring disabled people’s involvement in development processes in Binga District, Zimbabwe, this article: illuminates the impact of cultural beliefs about disability that systematically exclude disabled people from development initiatives; assesses the strengths and limitations of the capability approach for theorising disability; and considers the role of (u)buntu, a philosophy based on human relatedness and interdependence, in promoting justice for disabled people in sub-Saharan Africa.     

The study of mental distress and the (re)construction of identities in men and women with experience of long-term mental distress

This article explores the possibility of using a theoretical framework drawn from disability studies in the field of mental health, and the study of identity (re)construction in the recovery process. In this PhD project, 33 narratives were analysed using framework analysis. The analysis showed that disablism was present and powerful in the participants’ lives, and also showed how disablism shaped how the participants thought and felt about themselves. As Carol Thomas argues, when analysing disablism one should also focus on who we are and are prevented from being, as disabled people. The conclusion is that processes of oppression were central when it comes to understanding the (re)construction of identities. A disability studies perspective is thus relevant in the field of mental distress, and can be used to enhance the understanding of the process of identity (re)construction.     

Decolonizing Indigenous disability in Australia

Cultural diversity and social inequality are often ignored or downplayed in disability services. Where they are recognized, racial and cultural differences are often essentialized, ignoring diversity within minority groups and intersectionality with other forms of oppression. This is often an issue for Indigenous Australians living with disability. This paper argues that understanding Indigenous disability in Australia requires a critical examination of the history of racism that has systematically disabled most Indigenous people across generations and continues to cause disproportionate rates of impairment. Approaches that focus on the cultural ‘otherness’ of Indigenous people and fail to address taken-for-granted normative ‘whiteness’ and institutional and discursive racism are unable to escape that history.     

Neoliberalism,postsocialism, disability

This paper discusses the impact of neoliberalism on disability policy and activism. The paper highlights the neoliberalisation of postsocialist disability policy, as well as the convergence between the neoliberal critique of welfare-state paternalism and the advocacy of disabled people’s movement for deinstitutionalisation and direct payments (personal assistance). The discussion is supported by examples from Bulgaria and the United Kingdom. In conclusion, the paper argues that neoliberalism confronts the disabled people’s movement with two difficult tasks: to defend self-determination while criticising market-based individualism, and to defend the welfare state while criticising expert-based paternalism.     

Disability activism in the new media ecology: campaigning strategies in the digital era

This article examines the changing nature of disability activism through the influence of social media. As disabled people in the United Kingdom have been subjected to acute austerity, this has coincided with a new era of disability activism channelled through increased social media participation. Drawing on the analysis of one group’s online activities and a qualitative content analysis of disability protest coverage in traditional news media during the 2012 Paralympic Games, this article positions this shift in the broader framework of ‘new media ecology’. We explore how emerging structures of disability activism have begun to offer a more visible profile to challenge government policy and negative stereotypes of disabled people. This highlights the usefulness of campaigning strategies for generating favourable news coverage for disability protest.