Dan Goodley, Professor of Psychology and Disability Studies, University of Sheffield, School of Education, D.goodley@sheffield.ac.uk
It is perhaps not surprising to disability scholars though still sobering to learn, in the current climate of austerity and economic downturn, that disabled people are more likely to experience hate crime. A recent roundtable chaired by Tom Shakespeare of the World Health Organisation at the 2012 Disability Studies conference in Lancaster drew necessary attention to hate crimes in nations from Zimbabwe to England. One got a sense of a global epidemic of disablist hatred as contributors provided depressing and harrowing data on physical and psychological crimes. Conference delegates heard statistics on mental and sexual abuse, battery, vandalism of home and grievous bodily harm. These testimonies from colleagues such as Tsitsi Chataika and Alan Roulstone in the aforementioned nations importantly capture what is happening on the ground. Today. 2012. Actual acts of seemingly mindless violence. But how can we explain and understand this violence? What counts as violence against disabled people? And when we think of violence what do we have in mind? Whilst it is morally and politically necessary to recognise and challenge physical acts of violence – epitomised by hate crime – do other more subtle forms of violence exist that are as equally damaging to disabled people? Such questions might seem banal, trivial and typically academic. These questions appear to move away from the realities of hate-fuelled acts to the naval gazing realm of frothy theory often typified by those of a postmodern persuasion. Yet, on closer examination, one could conclude that these questions broaden the concept of violence and demand a more considered response. Continue reading