The making of Jamaica’s ‘National Policy for Persons with Disabilities 2000’: macro,meso and micro factors

This paper summarises the findings of my doctoral thesis on the development of Jamaica’s first rights‐based disability policy: The National Policy for Persons with Disabilities 2000. The research had two main aims. First through conducting a retrospective case study, was to construct a history of the national policy’s development, which was made possible by a series of events. Second, was to explore through using Easton’s thesis, that policy is developed within an extra‐ and intra‐ societal environment in order to investigate how macro, meso and micro factors have influenced the policy‐making process. The thesis synthesises Easton’s systems approach to policy‐making with Lasswell’s classic stagist approach as a tool for discussing the policy‐making process in Jamaica. I argue that a combination of macro, meso and micro factors created an ‘opportunity’ for the national policy’s development, which represents a paradigm shift in Jamaican disability policy.     

Citizenship: reflections on a relevant but ambivalent concept for persons with disabilities

This article examines the significance of citizenship with respect to disability. The article first highlights the idea of citizenship as ‘social contract’. This means the possession of civil, political, economic, cultural and social rights as well as the exercise of duties in society. Due to societal barriers, many disabled persons have difficulties fulfilling citizenship roles. Further, this article draws on citizenship theories; it examines three types of citizenship participation – the social citizen, the autonomous citizen and the political citizen – and discusses their promises and ableist implications. To counterbalance the exclusionary aspects of citizenship, we argue that human rights prove important. At the same time, human rights are more easily proclaimed than enforced and citizenship remains a precondition for effectively implementing human rights. The article concludes that citizenship is a relevant but also ambivalent concept when it comes to disability; it calls for a critical understanding of citizenship in Disability Studies.     

The disability–poverty nexus and the case for a capabilities approach: evidence from Johannesburg,South Africa

Debates about the relationship between poverty and disability continue and are important in that they contribute to policies regarding how best to address the needs of disabled people living in conditions of poverty. Increasingly, researchers have begun to use Sen's capabilities approach in understanding disability. However, the approach has not been adequately applied to understand the nature of the poverty and disability nexus, particularly in developing contexts. This article seeks to address this gap by reporting on evidence from a study conducted in eight of the poorest wards in Johannesburg. Using the capabilities lens we demonstrate the ways in which both poverty and disability compound one another to limit the capabilities of people. The findings point to the need for broad-scale as well as targeted social development policies and programmes to address the consequences of poverty and disability.     

Agency and capabilities to achieve a work-life balance: a comparison of Sweden and Hungary

This study develops a conceptual framework with a capabilities and agency approach for analyzing work–life balance (WLB) applied in two societies (Hungary and Sweden), which have different working time regimes, levels of precarious employment, and gender equality discourses and norms. Inspired by Amartya Sen, we present a model illustrating how agency freedom for WLB depends on multiple resources at the individual, work organizational, institutional, and normative/societal levels. Using a unique qualitative survey conducted in two cities, Budapest and Stockholm, we analyze how mothers and fathers subjectively experience the tensions between family and work demands, and their possibilities for alternative choices (agency freedom). We find similarities in these tensions involving time pressure and time poverty, cutting across gender and education. Our Hungarian parents, nevertheless, experience greater agency inequalities for WLB, which reflect weaker institutional resources (conversion factors) as well as cultural/societal norms that act as constraints for WLB claims in the workplace and household. Our study reveals that Swedish parents, both men and women, express a strong sense of entitlement to exercise rights to care.     

Community,Individual or Information Development? Dilemmas of concept and culture in South Asian disability planning

From the 1820s to the present, disability planning in South Asia has faced hard choices, compounded by the submersion of indigenous concepts in well-intentioned western exports of welfare ideologies and eurocentric social sciences. Cultural imperialism continues, with western evangelists insisting that South Asian disability development be seen in terms of human rights and community-based rehabilitation, regardless of the actual strengths and weaknesses of communities. Reconceptualisation of disability planning, focusing on information factors of concept, knowledge, skills, design and feedback, has been suggested as an alternative approach. However, the associated information media, while offering hope to millions, will again divide those who gain access from the hundred-millions who remain info-poor. Western information concepts risk overwhelming indigenous knowledge and diminishing the cultural confidence needed for South Asians to find their own appropriate solutions. To counteract this tendency, a strong base of Asian disability history is needed.     

Issue definition in rights‐based policy focused on the experiences of individuals with disabilities: an examination of Canadian parliamentary discourse

In issue definition in rights‐based policy Canada stereotypically embraces a more positive, human rights‐centered approach as compared with the American stereotype associated with the USA’s more presumptively negative, civil rights‐based tack. Since exclusionary infrastructures violate the core values of democratic governance, a failure to address unnecessarily exclusive infrastructures presents a rights‐based public challenge surrounding disability akin to those experienced by other non‐elite groups. Analysis of disability policy serves to clarify positive versus negative tendencies in rights‐based policy, including whether the expectation of a primarily positive basis in Canada is confirmed. This article examines the definition of public dimensions of the experiences of individuals with autism as a case reflecting the basis of construction of rights in Canada.     

中国残疾人事业法治建设三十年之回眸与前瞻

《残疾人保障法》实施30年来,中国残疾人事业法治体系和权利保障机制不断发展完善,促成了残疾人平等享有全面小康生活,也为世界人权话语丰富了“人类命运共同体”内涵,拓展了基于人权的发展路径。在全面建设社会主义现代化新时期,要进一步完善残疾人权利保障的法治体系,需要坚持融合发展原则,注重社会治理和社群赋能策略,在法律能力、无障碍、教育就业和司法保护等领域进行制度革新。     

Ten years of the CRPD’s adoption in China: challenges and opportunities

This article examines the challenges and opportunities of implementing the CRPD's rights-based model in China, especially the effects of the diminishing space for civil society on the nascent disability rights movement. A disability rights movement emerged as a direct result of the CRPD’s adoption in 2008. Two recent restrictive civil society legislations, however, undermined this process. While the diminishing space of civil society has posed great challenges to the movement by marginalizing the rights advocacy approach, it has created an opportunity for service-oriented disability associations to thrive. While service-oriented associations are often ignored by disability studies scholarship and the disability rights movement, I argue that, through these organizations, persons with disabilities in China have done critical identity work and substantively increased their level of independence in their daily lives. As a result, a disability rights consciousness continues to be built in China, despite governmental hostility to political advocacy.     

Embracing the new disability rights paradigm: the importance of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

In 2008 the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) commenced operation. The CRPD has created a dynamic new disability rights paradigm that empowers disability people’s organizations and creates a new paradigm for disability scholars. This paper analyses the impact of the CRPD and provides practical guidance as to how this convention can be used to drive change. Prior to this convention, persons with disabilities were protected by a range of general human rights conventions. Despite receiving nominal protection under general human rights conventions, persons with disabilities have had many of their human rights denied to them. The CRPD goes further than merely re-stating rights. It creates a new rights discourse, empowers civil society and renders human rights more obtainable for person with disabilities than any time in history.     

Do public representatives in local governments know about “disability rights” in Pakistan? An awareness assessment case from Southern Punjab

Local self-government systems have been adopted in many countries to supervise local interests in development and provide a range of goods and services to localities. It is believed that awareness of certain issues itself guides duty-bearers to reshape and divert development in a certain direction. In Pakistan, elected representatives in district governments are the key duty-bearers at the local level. Hence, their awareness is indispensable to decision-making for local development and, thus, it is pertinent to assess it from a disability rights perspective. In-depth information collected from two districts has reflected that most of the public representatives are ill-informed about disability, day-to-day problems of disabled persons and their rights, which results in inadvertently disability-biased local development planning. An overriding impression gained from the results is that raising elected representatives’ awareness on disability and the rights of disabled people is imperative to embracing disability rights practice in local development.     

From advocacy to service provision: state transformation and the disability rights movement in Taiwan

This research uses the development of the disability rights movement in Taiwan as a case study to analyze the impact of state transformation, in particular marketization of social welfare policy, on the disability rights movement. First, the institutionalization of the disability rights movement enabled it to expand its organizational structure and become involved in shaping policy. Secondly, when disability rights organizations started to undertake state-funded projects, their focus shifted from advocacy to service provision. Thirdly, competition for limited state-funding gave the organizations led by urban-middle class advocates a significant advantage over small, community-based NPOs and gathered significantly greater resources. Finally, this paper suggests that, in a context in which the state did not provide basic social services for its citizens with disabilities, the institutionalization of SMOs turned advocacy groups into service providers. Although the number of disability civic organizations increased, the voices of advocacy groups were weakened.     

Beyond the Medical Model: a reconsideration of 'feeblemindedness', citizenship, and eugenic restrictions

The rise of eugenic restrictions in early twentieth century America reshaped the relationship between intellectual disability, citizenship, and the exercise of rights. To explain the rise of rights restrictions, scholarship has largely turned to the medicalisation of 'feeblemindedness', while overlooking mainstream concepts within citizenship studies. By drawing upon an institutional and relational approach to citizenship, I argue that factors including the dominant legal narratives and infrastructure, as well as the broader relational context can be used to enhance our understanding of the development of eugenic restrictions. More broadly, an institutional and relational approach to citizenship can provide a theoretical framework by which to meaningfully include people with intellectual disabilities within citizenship studies, while recognising their unique historical experiences.     

Engaging with the Disability Rights Movement: the experience of community-based rehabilitation in southern Africa

This paper argues that unless community-based rehabilitation CBR programmes enter into genuine consultation with the disability rights movement they are in danger of repeating the mistakes of institution-based rehabilitation. Partnership between CBR programmes, and disabled people's and parents' organisations in southern Africa has led to the development of a more consumer focused approach to CBR Where disabled adults and parents have been fully involved in the design and implementation of programmes, CBR workers have a clearer understanding of disability as a development issue. Education, employment and poverty alleviation have been given a higher priority than medical rehabilitation in these programmes. The evolving concept of CBR and its relationship with the disability rights movement has been observed and documented by The Save the Children Fund, and forms the basis of this paper.     

An Empowerment Approach in Teaching a Class about Autism for Social Work Students

Social workers are being asked to respond to the rapidly increasing number of individuals and families affected by Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). However, the curricula in schools of social work have limited content on disabilities. This article describes a course which prepares social work students for work with individuals with ASD through an empowerment approach in an ever-changing socio-cultural and political environment. This approach changes the focus of disabilities from a narrow perspective on particular services and rehabilitation to a broader concern with human rights, social inclusion and quality of life. The article describes the development of the course in collaboration with a university disability program, the areas of emphasis for the course (family focused, interdisciplinary, lifespan) and the multiple modes of delivery. The implications of teaching the course as an elective or as integrating it further into the curriculum are discussed.     

Applications of a Capability approach to disability and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) in social work practice

As disability rates increase more social workers will require greater preparation to practice effectively with individuals with disabilities. The Capability approach and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health provide helpful tools for social worker training. The capability approach emphasizes the need to assess what individuals are able to do in their real-life environments (capabilities) rather than capacity or functional status. The ICF provides helpful disability-related terminology and an actual classification to assist social workers to develop appropriate interventions that facilitate capability development among individuals with disabilities. Using the capability framework with the ICF will contribute to improved understanding of disability among social work students and practitioners.     

From basic needs to basic rights

After arriving at an understanding that basic rights refer to all human needs, it is clear that a recognition of the basic needs of female humans must precede the realization of their rights. The old Women in Development (WID) framework only understood women's needs from an androcentric perspective which was limited to practical interests. Instead, women's primary need is to be free from their subordination to men. Such an understanding places all of women's immediate needs in a new light. A human rights approach to development would see women not as beneficiaries but as people entitled to enjoy the benefits of development. Discussion of what equality before the law should mean to women began at the Third World Conference on Women in Nairobi where the issue of violence against women was first linked to development. While debate continues about the distinction between civil and political rights and economic, social, and cultural rights, the realities of women's lives do not permit such a distinction. The concept of the universality of human rights did not become codified until the UN proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The declaration has been criticized by feminists because the view of human rights it embodies has been too strongly influenced by a liberal Western philosophy which stresses individual rights and because it is ambiguous on the distinction between human rights and the rights of a citizen. The protection of rights afforded by the Declaration, however, should not be viewed as a final achievement but as an ongoing struggle. International conferences have led to an analysis of the human-rights approach to sustainable development which concludes that women continue to face the routine denial of their rights. Each human right must be redefined from the perspective of women's needs, which must also be redefined. Women must forego challenging the concept of the universality of human rights in order to overcome the argument of cultural and religious diversity which erodes women's rights. Women can, however, challenge the traditional patriarchal understanding of human rights, drawing on the energy contained in the "basic needs to basic rights" approach.     

Romanian approach to media portrayals of disability

There is a wide range of media representations of disability, but not just because of the societal stigma. They are a function of norms of journalism as well as biases among people with disabilities themselves. This article is a contribution to the issue of social representation of persons with disabilities from a Romanian perspective, which will help to witness the transformation of the general perception of persons with disabilities by seeing the evolution of the terms used to name disability in crucial years of the socio‐political development of Romania (1989, 1990 and 2003). The existence of different categories of representations will reveal the evolution of society, which switched from a culture of protection to a culture of promotion for people with disabilities.     

Do disabled people need a stronger social model: a social model of human rights?

Abstract

We introduce the social model of disability by reflecting on its origins and legacy, with particular reference to the work of the Union of the Physically Impaired against Segregation. We argue that there has been a gradual rolling back of the rights and entitlements associated with the social model of disability. Yet no alternative for the social model has been proposed in response to such threats to disabled people’s human rights. Disabled people need a stronger social model that acts as a means to a society which enables and ensures their rights; the right to live a dignified life, as well as to live in an environment that enables people to flourish with disability.     

Cobblers and Song-birds: The Language and Imagery of Disability

In this article the author traces the development and delivery of a workshop on the language and imagery of disability. Within a context of post-modernist ontology and epistemology in which he sees language as the constituent of being, he examines the perceived discrepancy between attitude and structures in relation to disability, considering on the way questions of power and identity. Using a new paradigm narrative, model he discusses the language and imagery of disability created by means of a self-contained text in the workshop, attempting to demonstrate that any language behaviour will illustrate stereotypes in the wider societal culture. Because of the textual methodology he discusses briefly the nature of 'readership'. The workshop was for him an exploration and his discoveries lead him to examine the implications for disabled consultant/trainers and disabled people generally with respect to their relationship with non-disabled society.