International Journal of Disability and Social Justice Latest Issues

Articles

International Journal of Disability and Social Justice: Introduction and Aspiration, Angharad E. Beckett and Anna Lawson

Introduction: It is with excitement and hope that we put fingers to keyboards to write this editorial for the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Disability and Social Justice (IJDSJ). As with any new academic journal, the first editorial provides a valuable space in which to introduce  the  publication,  its  focus,  ethics  and  aspirations.  Before embarking on  such explanations, however, we want to make clear that the IJDSJ has been brought to life by an international, interdisciplinary collective. Some sense of this is conveyed by the composition of our Editorial Board (see www.ijdsj.online/editors).Helen Keller is reported to have once said: ‘Alone we can do so little; together we can do much’  (Bodden,  2016,  p.80).  This perfectly  captures  the  motivation  behind this Journal – an innovative project that seeks to unite and support an inter-national  community  of  researchers  and  research-users  who  seek  to  maximise  the  potential of research to enhance social justice for disabled people. Our publisher, Pluto Journals, has been critical to this venture. We are grateful to the Pluto Journals team for the imagination and effort they have invested in the pursuit of a publishing model that allows readers to access IJDSJ articles without hav-ing to pay (open access) and without imposing burdensome fees on authors or their organisations.  This positions  this  Journal  as  part  of  a  wider  Open  Science  move-ment. It reflects our commitment to addressing the unequal and uneven distribution of knowledge and ensuring that  science  is  accessible  to  the  public.  The rationale behind Open Science is debated, but for us it rests upon an understanding that scientific knowledge is   the product  of  social  collaboration  and,  as  such,  it  should  be  widely shared and used for public benefit.

Key Concerns for Critical Disability Studies, Dan Goodley, Rebecca Lawthom, Kirsty Liddiard and  Katherine Runswick-Cole

ABSTRACT: The International Journal of Disability and Social Justice is a timely intervention into the interdisciplinary field of Disability Studies. Any new initiative, espe-cially in a pre-existing and maturing field of inquiry, should encourage us all to think critically and reflexively about the key questions and issues that we should  be  grappling  with  today.  This  paper  offers  an  inevitably  partial  take  on  some  of  the  key  concerns  that  we  think  scholars,  activists  and  artists  of  Disability Studies should be engaging with. Everything we do these days takes place  in  the  shadows  cast  by  the  global  pandemic.  While  it  is  important  to  acknowledge  the  centrality  of  COVID-19  –  and  the  threat  this  poses  to  the  mind-bodies, politics and everyday realities of disabled people – we want to foreground  some  preoccupations,  ideas  and  debates  emerging  from  within  the field of Disability Studies that will have resonance beyond the pandemic. We will begin the paper by offering a perspective on the contemporary na-ture  and  state  of  Disability  Studies;  suggesting  that  many  of  us  are  Critical  Disability Studies thinkers now. Next, in order to narrow the focus of the dis-cussion in this brief paper, we choose one emergent and popular theoretical orientation  –  posthuman  Disability  Studies.  Then,  we  introduce  and  elabo-rate  on  four  broad  concerns  that  we  think  we  should  engage  with;  desire,  alliances, non/humans and their implications for conceptualising social justice. Throughout  the  paper  we  will  work  through  some  of  the  power  dynamics,  questions of accountability and requirements for a generosity of engagement that these concerns provoke.

KEYWORDS: Critical  Disability  Studies;  Social  justice;  Desire;  Alliances;  Non-humans;  Posthuman

Toilet Signs as Border Markers: Exploring Disabled  People’s Access to Space, Jen Slater and Charlotte Jones.

ABSTRACT: Signs prescribing our permission to enter or abstain from specific places, such as those on toilet doors, mark murky borders between quasi-public and private space and have profound impacts upon our lives and identities. In this paper we draw on research which centred trans, queer and disabled people’s experienc-es of toilet in/exclusion to explore how the signs on toilet doors shape disabled people’s experiences of toilet access away from home and therefore their use of public space more broadly. We argue that the use of the International Symbol of Access (ISA) both delivers a false promise of accessibility and maintains the borders of disability through (re)enforcing a particular public imaginary of dis-ability. We note the forced reliance on toilets in institutional and commercial settings when away from home and argue that, under capitalism, accessibility is persistently restricted by its potential to be lucrative.

KEYWORDS: accessibility;  disability;  bathroom;  restroom;  capitalism;  public  imaginary;  charity; non-apparent impairment; invisible impairment

Everyday Hate and Affective Possibility: Disabled People’s  Negotiations of Space, Place and Identity, Leah Burch

https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/intljofdissocjus.1.1.0073

ABSTRACT: Although a universal conceptualisation of disability hate crime does not exist, it is widely agreed that hate ‘hurts’ more than other types of crime. This pa-per explores the diverse affects of hate crime and the various ways that these experiences can harm those who are targeted. Moving beyond this, this article attends to the diverse ways that the affects of hate can come to shape disabled people’s everyday navigations of their surrounding social worlds. In doing so, it opens up a space for recognising the unique ways that people navigate, ne-gotiate  and  resist  experiences  of  hate  within  their  everyday  lives.  Thus,  the  purpose of this paper is to introduce a framework for thinking about ‘every-day hate and affective possibility’ within the everyday lives of disabled people. Drawing upon findings from a recently conducted research project, this article suggests  that  experiences  of  hate  crime  can  open  up  particularly  informed  ways of knowing and being in the world.

KEYWORDS: Hate crime; affect; affective capacity; emotions; everyday life; oppression1.

Residential Care Controversy: The Promise of the UN Convention  on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to Protect All Children, Eric Rosenthal

https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/intljofdissocjus.1.1.0095

ABSTRACT: Conflicting interpretations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) send mixed messages on the safety and legitimacy of residential care, resulting in the re-placement of large institutions with smaller ones, often called ‘residential care’ or ‘group homes.’ The CRPD requires governments to create protections and supports to allow all people with disabilities to live in the community. CRPD Committee General Comment No. 5 says that, for children, living in the com-munity  means  growing  up  in  a  family  –  not  in  a  large  or  small  facility.  This  article demonstrates how the family inclusion mandate of General Comment No. 5 is rooted in the ‘human rights model of disability,’ fundamental to equal protection under the CRPD for all children with actual or perceived disabili-ties. The article proposes solutions to ensure full implementation of both the CRC and CRPD.

KEYWORDS: Human rights, disability, CRPD, CRC, residential care, group home

Book Review Constructing the (M)other: Narratives of Disability, Motherhood and  the Politics of Normal by Priya Lalvani (ed), (Peter Lang, 2019), Katherine Runswick-Cole