Re-Imagining Social Change: Disability Human Rights Activism in Neoliberal Democracies. Poland and the UK as Case Studies.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Today, in the international disabled people's movement, disability is understood in social rather than in medical terms. Under this concept, disability does not equal a bodily impairment of, or other dysfunction in, a person. Instead disability is a failure of non-disabled society to provide disabled people with assistance required for their normal societal participation. The radical shift in thinking about disability originated from the disabled people's movement in 1970s Britain, especially from the political struggle of UPIAS (the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation) for disabled people's rights. A theoretical reflection on UPIAS' claims led to emergence of a new academic discipline, the Disability Studies, and to the formulation of the social model of disability.Despite these origins of the Copernican shift in thinking about disability, there is a surprising tendency among Disability Studies scholars not to engage in a theoretical exploration of the activism of disabled people's organisations. In contrast to this, my PhD is about scholarly 'making sense' of the understandings of disability emerging from the women-led disability activism in Poland. Results show that disability discourse of my case study organisations is rich, nuanced and conceptually insightful. For example, it sheds a new 'activist' light on the most recent fundamental debate in Disability Studies, whether the social model of disability has been replaced by a new disability model that underpins the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD). UN CRPD is a major legal instrument of disability human rights protection adopted by 186 countries, including the UK and Poland.My thesis also illuminates the meaning of feminist values for the women-led disability activism. It shows that feminism can merge with disability activism and these both may be elements of an even broader social justice agenda of a disability organisation. This finding is significant as it challenges a widespread view that disabled people's political aspirations are limited to disability discrimination. Rarely are they thought of as contributions to general political debates. While I focused on Polish women-led disability organisations, my PhD's approach and findings have broader relevance for post-socialist and international Disability Studies, including British Disability Studies. The thesis also enriches feminist studies and human rights scholarship.In the fellowship, the contributions of my PhD will be disseminated to interdisciplinary academic audiences: Disability Studies, Gender Studies and human rights scholars. This will be achieved through publications in leading academic journals and through panel(s) I will organize. I will also use and further expand my existing networks among activists and policy-makers to ensure that my research has impact on their work for the realization of disability human rights and gender equality. Furthermore, my research has already been presented to general public in form of op-eds and interviews. I will continue to engage with audiences in this way during the fellowship. Finally, I will extend my research to the UK's women-led disability organisations. Based on my PhD and these new findings, I will be able to develop a comparative perspective on how Polish and British women-led disability organisations understand general disability discrimination and intersectional discrimination against disabled women; how they think about broader social change; what place feminism has in their activism. Upon this conceptual and empirical foundation, I will develop a book proposal.The fellowship will also allow me to gather experience in teaching at a British university. Other than building up a track record of impactful publications, this will also further my goal to establish myself as a Disability Studies scholar committed to building bridges between disability academic, activist and policymaking circles.