Disability, citizenship and uncivilized society: the smooth and nomadic qualities of self-advocacy

People with the label of "intellectual disabilities"1 are often objectified and devalued by master narratives of deviance, tragedy and lack. In this paper, we draw on poststructuralist and feminist resources (e.g. Deleuze & Guattari 1987 and Braidotti 1994, 2002, 2006a) to argue that a disabling society is uncivilized in ways that block the becomings of citizenship. We draw upon our work with self-advocacy groups in England and Belgium where self-advocates open up different life worlds. We shed light on their politics of resistance and resilience, and map how they, as politicized citizen subjects, move in a web of oppressive disability discourses. However, we suggest, as nomads, they set foot on the landmarks of their lives in a never-ending search for smooth spaces in which something different might happen

A neoliberális-épségista oktatás megkérdőjelezése a kritikai pedagógia segítségével

Dan Goodley a fogyatékosságtudomány és a pedagógia professzora a Sheffield Egyetemen. Korábban a Leedsi Egyetemen és a manchesteri Metropolitan Egyetemen oktatott. Számos könyve és cikke jelent meg a kritikai fogyatékosságtudomány témájában, többek között a Self-advocacy in the Lives of People with Learning Difficulties (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000), a Disability Studies. An interdisciplinary introduction (London: Sage, 2011, első kiadás) és a Dis/ability Studies: Theorising disablism and ableism (Routledge, 2014) című munkák szerzője. A Disability Studies. An interdisciplinary introduction második kiadását (London: Sage, 2017) hamarosan Fogyatékosságtudomány. Interdiszciplináris bevezető címmel magyar fordításban is kézbe vehetik az olvasók. Lapszámunkat a könyv 9. fejezetével nyitjuk, kedvcsinálóként (A szerk.

Disablism and Diaspora: British Pakistani Families and Disabled Children

This paper explores the intersections of diaspora, disability and family. Drawing on qualitative interviews with the parents of three British Pakistani families we draw out three lines of enquiry. The first, disability and disavowal in Pakistan, explores parents’ relationship with ‘home’ and how this is complicated by the presence of disablism. The second, disability and the fight for care in Britain, explores the ways in which British Asian families are grounded not only in the cultures and traditions of their parents and the Asian subcontinent, but also in the social practices of Britain. The third, disability and diaspora - from isolation to ensembled caringscapes, examines the limits and possibilities offered through diaspora. One key affirmative element of this is the support of an extended family, which brings with it, the chance to look to the future with hope and possibility

The body as disability and possability: theorizing the ‘leaking, lacking and excessive’ bodies of disabled children

The disabled body has come to occupy more than an ‘absent presence’ in critical disability studies. Disability theory has addressed an original somatophobia through debates between social modellists, realists, phenomenologists, psychoanalysts and postconventionalists. We briefly trace these debates and then the present article considers two readings of non-normative impaired bodies. Through a focus on the embodiment stories of disabled children we consider those times when their bodies demonstrate some forms of ‘leakage, excess, lack or displacement’. Our first reading, ‘disability’, adopts a social psychoanalytic lens to alert us to the cultural constitution of the disabled body as lack. Our second reading, ‘possability’, adopts a postconventionalist stance and considers the disabled body as productively demanding imaginative theoretical and practical responses. We aim to explore the ways in which the impaired body can be embraced as a unique embodied entity through which to revise how bodies should and could be lived in. Our hope is that understanding these dual parallel processes allows us to keep together disability and possability as key elements of the difference of disability

Dis/ability and austerity: beyond work and slow death

The forthcoming book Dis/ability Studies: Theorising Disablism and Ableism argues that we are living in an historical epoch which might be described as neoliberal-ableism, in which we are all subjected to slow death, increased precarity and growing debility. In this paper we apply this analysis to a consideration of austerity with further reference to disability studies and politics

The trouble with hard working families

In this first in a new series of Voices pieces for the Journal, we set out to trouble the much-vaunted phrase ‘hard working families’. During the 2015 election campaign in the UK, we observed that politicians from across the political spectrum hardly ever used the word ‘families’ without prefacing it with two more words: ‘hard working’. While this may be a peculiarly global North turn of phrase, adopted by politicians in the UK, the USA and Australia, here we offer a critique of the term ‘hard working family’ that, we hope, speaks more generally to issues of community, work and family and to the global rise of neoliberal-ableism (Goodley, Lawthom, & Runswick-Cole, 2014)

Thinking relationally: Disability, families and cultural-historical activity theory

It is commonly expressed by parents of disabled children within the Nordic region that there is a mismatch between the official aims of the welfare state and the services provided. In an attempt to explore ways to improve welfare services for disabled children and their families this article proposes three social-relational approaches to disability, family, and service systems which combined may create a basis for new and dynamic ways of working with families. The first approach is a relational understanding of disability, the second a family-centred theory characterized by partnerships with parents, and the third a cultural-historical activity theory emphasizing inter-organizational learning as a method to develop services. Developing ways to fulfil the welfare states’ promise of equality and human rights for all is particularly relevant now when all the Nordic countries are currently striving to meet the demands of the new UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.Peer Reviewe

Big Society? Disabled people with the label of learning disabilities and the queer(y)ing of civil society

This paper explores the shifting landscape of civil society alongside the emergence of ‘Big Society’ in the UK. We do so as we begin a research project Big Society? Disabled people with learning disabilities and Civil Society [Economic and Social Research Council (ES/K004883/1)]; we consider what ‘Big Society’ might mean for the lives of disabled people labelled with learning disabilities (LDs). In the paper, we explore the ways in which the disabled body/mind might be thought of as a locus of contradictions as it makes problematic Big Society notions of: active citizenship and social capital. Our aim is to queer(y), or to trouble, these Big Society ideas, and to suggest that disability offers new ways of thinking through civil society. This leads us to three new theoretical takes upon civil society: (1) queer(y)ing active citizenship, (2) queer(y)ing social capital and (3) shaping, resisting and queer(y)ing Big Society. We conclude by suggesting that now is the time for disabled people with LDs to re-enter the fray in a new epoch of crip civil society

Critical psychologies of disability: boundaries, borders and bodies in the lives of disabled children

Attending to the ways in which bodies and subjectivities are constituted in social environments is not simply a concern of social geographers but an emerging interest in critical psychology, childhood and disability studies. Boundaries and borders are nothing if not the different relational and durational articulations of bodies and spaces. These entangled boundaries include borders between parent and child; culture and body; school, family and child. Through analysing the ways in which these borderlines are continually re-composed and re-constituted, we are able to reveal their relational and embodied articulations. In previous works, we have explored the ways in which disabled children disrupt normative orders associated with school, family and community. In this paper, we take up the concepts of boundaries and borders to explore their relational and embodied articulations with specific reference to stories collected as part of an ESRC project entitled ‘Does every child matter, Post-Blair: the interconnections of disabled childhoods’. We ask, how do disabled children negotiate space in their lives? In what ways do they challenge space through their borders and boundaries with others? How can we re-imagine, re-think and differently practice – that is revolutionise – key borders and boundaries of education in ways that affirm the lives of disabled children? We address these questions through reference to the narrative from the Derbyshire family, with particular focus on Hannah and her mother Linda, which we argue allow us to consider the ways in which disabled childhoods can be understood and reimagined. We explore two analytical considerations; ‘Being disabled: being mugged’ and ‘Becoming enabled: teacups, saucers and communities’