Linda Steele, PhD
Associate Professor of Law
University of Technology Sydney
Paul van Trigt, PhD
Lecturer in Social History
Leiden Universit
Abstract: Paul van Trigt will discuss the role of the ‘family’ or ‘community’ in global disability policies since the 1970s, in relation to shifting ideas of who is responsible for disabled persons’ health. The (supposed) dependence of disabled persons on others, be it family members or state professionals, offers a useful lens to reveal the contradictory and changing moral values that underlie global health policies. Van Trigt will argue that ‘community health’ became in the 1990s a neoliberal tool to move the responsibility of states for the health of their citizens to families. Linda Steele will examine the potential of sites of conscience practices in redressing injustices associated with the institutionalisation of disabled people. Many disabled people who were institutionalised have been unable to obtain public recognition and justice through conventional legal remedies: sites of conscience practices with former disability institutions may offer one alternative route towards redress. How might sites of conscience practices with former disability institutions be part of how we collectively recognise and ‘set right’ the harms and injustices of health policy?
Sponsored by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Location and Address
Online