International Disability Rights Advocacy (Interdisciplinary Disability Studies)

Description

This book provides insight into the globally interlinked disability rights community and its political efforts today. By analysing what disability rights activism contributes to a global power apparatus of disability-related knowledge, it demonstrates how disability advocacy influences the way we categorise, classify, distribute, manipulate, and therefore transform knowledge. By unpacking the mutually constitutive relations between (practical) moral knowledge of international disability advocates and (formal) disability rights norms that are codified in international treaties such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the author shows that the disability rights movement is largely critical of statements that attempt to streamline it. At the same time, cross-cultural disability rights advocacy requires images of uniformity to stabilise its global legitimacy among international stakeholders and retain a common meta-code that visibly identifies its means and aims. As an epistemic community, disability rights advocates simultaneously rely on and contest the authority of international human rights infrastructure and its language. Proving that disability rights advocates contribute immensely to a global culture that standardises what is considered morally and legally ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, thereby shaping the human body and the body politic, this book will be of interest to all scholars and students of critical disability studies, sociology of knowledge, legal and linguistic anthropology, social inequality, and social movements. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of figures Glossary of abbreviations and notes on terminology Chapter 1: Introduction Intertwined approaches to dis/ability Sensitivity of disability models Sensitivity of concepts Empirical approach Structure of the book Notes References Part I Chapter 2: Theory with unstable referents Disability and power-knowledge Dispositif/apparatus Discourse Knowledge Advocacy and power-knowledge The role of advocacy The role of language and codes Who are disability rights advocates? Social movements and their hierarchies Building alliances and assigning leadership Sources of authority and legitimacy Claiming authority: relevant truths and relationships Claiming legitimacy: dominant models and referents Epistemic community The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ contribution Towards a more inclusive epistemic community of disability Disability and human rights codes A case for the CRPD as a vector of interrelation Legal markers Conclusion Notes References Chapter 3: Methodical approach Preliminary questions and grounded theory Document analysis and translations The sample Notes References Part II Chapter 4: Reflecting languages and symbols Claiming institutional space Metaphorising the unsayable Breaking down expertise: ‘Rational’ elements of advocacy Breaking down dis/affection: ‘Emotional’ elements of advocacy Conclusion Notes References Chapter 5: Paradigmatic lines and actor relationships The reconcilability of disability models Normative framing: the social model Where is the body in a philosophy of dis/ability? Accommodating paradigmatic gaps Conclusion Notes References Chapter 6: Reconciling multiple knowledges Rifts along general principles Coalescing multiple views Conclusion Notes References Chapter 7: Categorising and explaining as knowledge change Spoken effects of change Written effects of change Conclusion Notes References Chapter 8: Advocacy knowledge as political-legal intervention Languages of law as combat gear Right(s) words and political correctness remedy Associative slogans to address a ‘We’ Conclusion Notes References Chapter 9: Final discussion Findings Limitations and outlook References Index