‘Us’ and ‘them’: the limits and possibilities of a ‘politics of neurodiversity’ in neoliberal times

The neurodiversity movement claims that there are neurological differences in the human population, and that autism is a natural variation among humans – not a disease or a disorder, just ‘a difference’. A ‘politics of neurodiversity’ is based on the claim that the ‘neurodiverse’ population constitutes a political grouping comparable with those of class, gender, sexuality or race. This paper considers the limits and possibilities of neurodiverse political activism, and concludes by calling for a politics of identity that does not depend on a politics of ‘us’ and ‘them’

Parents as advocates : the experience of parents who register an appeal with the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (SENDisT)

The focus of this study is on the experiences of parents of children with special educational needs who advocate for their children in the special needs system. The Special Educational Needs Tribunal was set up in 1994 and since then more than 25,000 appeals have been registered (Hughes, 2005). In 2002, the Tribunal began hearing claims for disability discrimination and became known as the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (SENDisT). The aim of this study is to foreground the parents' experiences of the system of SENDisT and to develop understanding of the experience of parenting a child with special educational needs and/ or impairments. SENDisT is more than ten years old, yet research into the workings of SENDisT has been very limited (Aldridge, 2003). A study which foregrounds parents' perspectives is, then, well overdue. As part of the narrative inquiry, parents were asked to tell their stories of going to SENDisT. Twenty four parents and eight professionals told their Tribunal stories. This study has key implications for the workings of SENDisT but it also contributes to the current debates in special education, including the system of statements, the policy of inclusion, and the working of parent-professional relationships. The study has relevance for the stake holders in the system of special education including children, parents, teachers, panel members, psychologists, LEA officers and academics. At the same time, the study reflects the uncertainty that parents who engage with Tribunals will face in the future. In a policy climate which reflects the abilist assumptions of the wider society (DfES, 2005), it is difficult to remain optimistic about the outcomes for children and their parents. However, it seems certain that some parents, at least, will continue to resist, contest and challenge the limitations and interpretations put upon their families' lives

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

'Some people are not allowed to love': intimate citizenship in the lives of people labelled with intellectual disabilities

Disability helps us think differently about the ‘ideal’ neoliberal-able citizen who may not equate to ideas of productive, sexual, ‘normal’. Intimate citizenship – our rights and access to intimacy – is often ignored by those working with people labelled with intellectual disabilities and in research. In this article, we discuss the outcome of a dialogue between self-advocates labelled with intellectual disabilities, academics, service providers, Aboriginal leaders, students and artists about intimate citizenship through love, intimate work and consumption

Dis/Entangling Disability, Mental Health, and the Cultural Politics of Care

This paper explores how understandings of care can be prefigured through engagements with concepts of ableism and sanism as productive and radical companions for (re)thinking care. Working with family carers and people with learning disabilities as part of a co-produced project based in England: Tired of spinning plates: an exploration of the mental health experiences of adults and/or older carers of adults with learning disabilities (National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) 135080, October 2022-November 2024), we notice the absence of the concepts of ableism and sanism in theorisations of the cultural politics of care. We begin by describing family carers’ complex entanglements with categories of ‘carer’, ‘learning disability’, and ‘mental health’. We draw on theorisations of ableism and sanism to inform our analysis of caring relationships, attending to the dis/temporalities and dis/locations of care and the centrality of dis/political love. We conclude by reflecting on what academics, policy makers and practitioners might learn about caring practices from family carers and people with learning disabilities, crucially acknowledging and embracing the power of dis/political love in caring relationships

Understanding interventions and outcomes in supported employment and individual placement support : A qualitative evidence synthesis

Economically developed economies continue to display large and long-standing disability employment gaps. Train-then-place activation models have traditionally dominated efforts to support non-working disabled people to gain employment but recently there has been increasing interest in place-then-train Supported Employment (SE) activation models. Evidence regarding the effectiveness of SE approaches is growing. However, authors have called for greater understanding of the mechanisms underpinning these interventions. We therefore carried out a systematic review of qualitative research to understand the processes operating. We carried out a systematic review of qualitative research around SE interventions carried out in developed countries since 2000 in any population excepting those with severe mental illness. We used thematic synthesis and logic modelling methods and assessed the quality of the body of literature. We identified and included 13 relevant source studies containing qualitative data. Key aspects of the programmes reported were the nature of the support, the employment advisor, and the type of employment. Influencing factors were client-related, employer and employment-related, programme-related, and system-related. Effects beyond the gaining of employment included a changed attitude to work, different outlook, increased skills and/or confidence. Suggested longer-term impacts were on health and wellbeing, financial security, independence, contribution to society and sense of belonging. This review adds to the growing evidence regarding the value of SE interventions for disabled people. It adds insights regarding the key elements of the programmes, and suggests outcomes beyond the measures typically considered within quantitative studies. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An international conversation on disabled children's childhoods: Theory, ethics and methods

This article brings together members of the International Advisory Committee for the Inclusive Early Childhood Service System (IECSS) project, a longitudinal study of interactions with institutional processes when families have a young child with disabilities. The article introduces international discourses on early childhood development (both individual and community) and raises questions about the ethics of these discourses in the context of historical and current global inequalities. We consider the exporting of professional discourses from the global north to the global south through directives from global institutions, and the imposition of medical thinking onto the lives of disabled children. We discuss theoretical positions and research methods that we believe may open up possibilities for change