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

今天，在国际残疾人运动中，人们从社会而不是医学的角度来理解残疾。根据这一概念，残疾并不等于一个人的身体缺陷或其他功能障碍。相反，残疾是一个非残疾社会未能为残疾人提供正常参与社会所需的帮助。残障观念的根本转变源于20世纪70年代英国的残障运动，尤其是UPIAS（反对隔离残障联盟）为争取残障人士权利而进行的政治斗争。对UPIAS主张的理论反思导致了一门新的学科——残疾研究的出现，并形成了残疾的社会模式。尽管哥白尼对残疾的思考有了这些转变，但残疾研究学者中有一个令人惊讶的趋势，即不参与对残疾人组织的行动主义的理论探索。与此相反，我的博士学位是关于从波兰妇女领导的残疾运动中对残疾的理解的学术“理解”。结果表明，我的案例研究组织的残疾话语是丰富的，细致入微的，概念上有洞察力。例如，它为残疾研究中最近的基本辩论提供了一个新的“积极”的视角，即残疾的社会模式是否已经被一种新的残疾模式所取代，这种模式支撑着《联合国残疾人权利公约》（UN CRPD）。《残疾人权利公约》是包括英国、波兰在内的186个国家通过的残疾人人权保护重要法律文书。本文也阐释了女性主义价值观对于女性主导的残疾运动的意义。这表明女权主义可以与残疾人行动主义融合，这两者都可能成为残疾人组织更广泛的社会正义议程的要素。这一发现意义重大，因为它挑战了一种普遍的观点，即残疾人的政治愿望仅限于残疾歧视。他们很少被认为是对一般政治辩论的贡献。虽然我关注的是波兰女性领导的残疾组织，但我的博士研究方法和发现对后社会主义和国际残疾研究（包括英国残疾研究）具有更广泛的相关性。这篇论文也丰富了女性主义研究和人权学术。在奖学金中，我的博士贡献将被传播给跨学科的学术受众：残疾研究、性别研究和人权学者。这将通过在主要学术期刊上发表文章和我将组织的小组讨论来实现。我还将利用并进一步扩大我在活动家和决策者之间的现有网络，以确保我的研究对他们实现残疾人人权和性别平等的工作产生影响。此外，我的研究已经以专栏和访谈的形式向公众展示。在奖学金期间，我将继续以这种方式与听众交流。最后，我将把我的研究扩展到英国女性领导的残疾人组织。基于我的博士学位和这些新发现，我将能够就波兰和英国妇女领导的残疾组织如何理解一般残疾歧视和对残疾妇女的交叉歧视发展一个比较的视角；他们如何看待更广泛的社会变革；女权主义在他们的行动中占有什么地位。在这个概念和经验的基础上，我将制定一本书的建议。该奖学金还将使我在英国大学积累教学经验。除了建立有影响力的出版物的记录外，这也将进一步实现我的目标，即成为一名致力于在残疾学术、活动家和政策制定界之间建立桥梁的残疾研究学者。

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.