NNDR

Róisín Dermody, independent researcher and disability activist, Dublin, Ireland

Abortion is a highly contentious issue when the debate focuses on a woman’s right to choose and the right to life of the unborn child.  However, when the decision to abort is based on the detection of an impairment during prenatal screening, the debate takes on a whole new perspective. And now, we are asked to consider the case of “After birth Abortion”.

On the 23^rd February 2012, the Journal of Medical Ethics published an article by  Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva which advocates for “after birth abortion” on the basis that:

1. Neither foetuses nor newborns have the same moral status as actual persons,

2. The fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and

3. Adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people.

Continue reading →

 Hannah Morgan, Lecturer in Disability Studies, Lancaster University, UK

1^st May is celebrated throughout the Nordic countries and beyond as a day of celebration and activism linked to our shared heritage in the international labour movement.  Since 2006 it has also become Blogging Against Disablism Day (BADD) coordinated by Diary of a Goldfish (1). The purpose of the day is to raise ‘awareness of inequality, promote equality and celebrate the progress we’ve made’.  As a discipline, an inter-disciplinary area of study or community of practice (depending on your perspective, we are nothing if not a broad church) Disability Studies has much to celebrate and affirm. Continue reading →

Simo Vehmas, Professor of Special Education, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, President of NNDR

In this blog entry, I will discuss very briefly two related and controversial questions that, in my view, arise from the neurodiversity perspective: first, whether neurodiversity has an organic basis, and secondly, whether it is a significant factor regarding responsibility for one’s actions.

Many neurodiversity activists argue that, for example, autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are real conditions, with an organic basis (while some neurodiversity/anti-psychiatry activists say exactly the opposite). Autism, for example, is a matter of different form of brain wiring, something that is very much real and has consequences to one’s behavior. In this respect, neurodiversity has a somewhat different outlook on disability than disability studies perspective, which emphasizes primarily the social nature of the definition of bodily and mental differences. Some scholars and thinkers representing a ‘postmodern’ viewpoint go as far as questioning the definite reality of impairment: everything’s socially constructed, so it makes no sense to talk about impairments as ‘real entities’ that exist independently of our interpretations about them. Continue reading →

Philippa Rieck, PhD researcher, Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research, University of Glasgow, UK

Channel 4 in the UK has currently been running the very popular ‘One Born Every Minute’ which attempts to show the ‘real life drama’ that occurs in the labour ward. The show is pivoted on the notion that it represents ‘every day women’s’ experiences of childbirth and of the maternity ward. Whilst interviewing a participant for my PhD research around the experience of citizenship and the body she said “You know that programme one born every minute, well you don’t see any disabled women on it having babies do you? Do disabled people just not have kids…if that show is filmed over a year in a maternity hospital then where are the disabled people?”. Most of the women I spoke to made some kind of reference to the lack of knowledge around disability and pregnancy which has, for them, resulted in a built up fear and a real feeling of exclusion from this realm. Continue reading →

Bjarne Bjelke Jensen, Consultant, The National Resource Centre on Disability and Social Psychiatry, Denmark

On February 9^th 2012, a rather unique event took place in Denmark. The Danish “Resource Centre on Disability and Social Psychiatry” arranged a conference on knowledge arenas in the disability field in the years to come – mainly with reference to the intersection of research and practice.

The purpose of the conference was to place disability into a larger perspective than is usually the case in a Danish context, where we have no real disability studies environment. The Danish NNDR network is the closest thing to an entity trying to connect the various social research entries in the disability field. Entries, that tend to be singular projects, somewhat isolated. Continue reading →

Magnus Tideman, Professor of disability research, University of Halmstad, Sweden

The changes that have taken place for persons with intellectual disabilities in Sweden from the beginning of the 1990s until today are characterised by a number of clear trends. Institutional living has been replaced by residential arrangements with special service or the possibility for individuals to live in apartments of their own in ordinary residential areas, the level of variation in support and service depending on the city/town/area in which individuals live has increased, and private companies are becoming increasingly involved within the disability care sector. At the same time, there has been a significant increase in the number of people being categorised as intellectually disabled, as well as an increasing level of resistance among young adults against being viewed as passive care receivers. Continue reading →

Gregor Wolbring, Associate professor, Dept. of Community Health Sciences, Program in Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies, University of Calgary, Canada, Email: gwolbrin@ucalgary.ca

As I see it, the theoretical framework and analytical lens of Ableism is a gift from the disabled people rights movement and disability studies to the social sciences and humanities.

I self-identify as a disability studies scholar, a science and technology studies scholar and an ability-cultural researcher (cultural research on ability preferences exhibited by individuals and societies). Ability expectations and preferences are one dynamic through which members of a group judge others and themselves and their lives. Ability preferences and judgments are at the root of many rules of behaviours and customs.  Every disability studies scholar is in my eyes also an ability-cultural researcher. Continue reading →