Beskæftigelsesrettede indsatser for mennesker med psykiske lidelser - et pilotstudie

Inte

Danish disability research across half a century

Social research on disability exhibits a degree of interdisciplinarity. While neither large nor clearly defined, this area of research has political relevance since it is often brought into play when drawing up or evaluating government policy to improve the situation for disabled people. The present article outlines Danish disability research with the emphasis on social research in the last 10 years. It points to forces and framework conditions that have influenced the development of the field of research. It also presents central topics of research as well as some of its findings. It concludes with a discussion of future conditions for disability research in Denmark

Empowerment and personal assistance – resistance, consumer choice, partnership or discipline?

The concept of empowerment has been closely linked to the development of personal assistance (PA) and the independent living ideology. However, the use of the concept of empowerment has been disputed as it has begun to be used in both the marketization of the PA scheme and as a government strategy to promote active partnership. In this article, we take a closer look at the concept of empowerment and how different approaches capture different relationships between the state and the users of PA. We distinguish between empowerment as a form of resistance, as a form of consumer choice, as co-productions and as a liberal strategy of dominance in the modern society. The analysis indicates how the different notions of empowerment run alongside each other in the development of the PA arrangement in the Scandinavian countries and that the different perspectives will have different consequences when PA is to be analysed as a tool of liberation for disabled people