Resources search

Disability, socialism and autonomy in the 1970s: case studies from Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom

RYDSTRÖM, Jens
2019

Expand view

n the 1970s, grassroots disability movements in many countries changed the thinking around disability and disability politics. Nonetheless, they were also part of larger political upheavals in the western world. How were they inspired by the socialist, feminist, and gay and lesbian movements? In addition, how did they relate to non-disabled allies? Organisations in Denmark and Sweden are investigated and compared to early disability-rights movements in the United Kingdom. Independently of each other, all groups developed materialist models, although only in Sweden and the United Kingdom did this lead to a linguistic distinction between ‘impairment’ and ‘disability’. Danish activists would rather use provocative language, while developing a social understanding of disability. They were also the only ones to discuss gender and sexuality. There are more similarities than differences between the movements, although the Danish specificities contributed to improvements in how Danes with disabilities can develop a positive sex life.

  • In the 1970s, new political ideas grew about ways of living, equality between the sexes, gay and lesbian rights, and sexual freedom. New groups started to talk about how to understand disability.
  • This article investigates whether the new disability groups in Denmark and Sweden talked about these ideas and whether they involved non-disabled people.
  • Danish and Swedish disability groups are compared to early disability rights organisations in the United Kingdom. The Danish and Swedish disability groups were more open to non-disabled members than groups in the United Kingdom.
  • The article also found that the Danish group discussed sexuality a lot. In Sweden and the United Kingdom, the disability groups did not talk about sex at all.

Precarious lives and resistant possibilities: the labour of people with learning disabilities in times of austerity

BATES, Keith
GOODLEY, Dan
RUNSWICK-COLE, Katherine
2017

Expand view

This paper draws on feminist and queer philosophers? discussions of precarity and employment, too often absent from disability studies, to explore the working lives of people with learning disabilities in England in a time of austerity. Recent policy shifts from welfare to work welcome more disabled people into the job market. The reality is that disabled people remain under-represented in labour statistics and are conspicuously absent in cultures of work. We live in neoliberal- able times where we all find ourselves precarious. But, people with learning disabilities experience high levels of uncertainty in every aspect of their lives, including work, relationships and community living. Our research reveals an important analytical finding: that when people with learning disabilities are supported in imaginative and novel ways they are able to work effectively and cohesively participate in their local communities (even in a time of cuts to welfare). We conclude by acknowledging that we are witnessing a global politics of precarity and austerity. Our urgent task is to redress the unequal spread of precaritization across our society that risks leaving people with learning disabilities experiencing disproportionately perilous lives. One of our key recommendations is that it makes no economic sense (never mind moral sense) to pull funding from organisations that support people with intellectual disabilities to work.

E-bulletin