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The post-institutional era : visions of history in research on intellectual disability

Altermark, Niklas LU (2017) In Disability and Society 32(9). p.1315-1332
Abstract

In this article, I address how the history of intellectual disability politics is made sense of in social scientific research and popular discourse. In particular, I discuss the construction of a narrative break between a past of institutionalisation and the present policies of citizenship. By drawing on how postcolonial theorists criticise common ideas about decolonisation, I argue that this narrative impedes our appreciation of how power has transformed, rather than disappeared, after deinstitutionalisation. Instead, I propose ‘post-institutionalisation’ as a name for the present era of intellectual disability politics, suggesting that we need to attend to continuities and discontinuities of how the group is governed; how paternalism... (More)

In this article, I address how the history of intellectual disability politics is made sense of in social scientific research and popular discourse. In particular, I discuss the construction of a narrative break between a past of institutionalisation and the present policies of citizenship. By drawing on how postcolonial theorists criticise common ideas about decolonisation, I argue that this narrative impedes our appreciation of how power has transformed, rather than disappeared, after deinstitutionalisation. Instead, I propose ‘post-institutionalisation’ as a name for the present era of intellectual disability politics, suggesting that we need to attend to continuities and discontinuities of how the group is governed; how paternalism lives on after deinstitutionalisation and how the goals of citizenship inclusion give rise to new technologies of government. I conclude the article by discussing the necessity and the dangers of involving people with intellectual disabilities in the analysis of post-institutional government.

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author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
deinstitutionalisation, disability studies, Intellectual disability, postcolonial theory, Spivak
in
Disability and Society
volume
32
issue
9
pages
1315 - 1332
publisher
Routledge
external identifiers
  • wos:000413900500003
  • scopus:85019250182
ISSN
0968-7599
DOI
10.1080/09687599.2017.1322497
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
8356de72-0e0e-4cfe-8498-4f942b99af95
date added to LUP
2017-05-30 08:15:55
date last changed
2021-01-12 02:48:44
@article{8356de72-0e0e-4cfe-8498-4f942b99af95,
  abstract     = {<p>In this article, I address how the history of intellectual disability politics is made sense of in social scientific research and popular discourse. In particular, I discuss the construction of a narrative break between a past of institutionalisation and the present policies of citizenship. By drawing on how postcolonial theorists criticise common ideas about decolonisation, I argue that this narrative impedes our appreciation of how power has transformed, rather than disappeared, after deinstitutionalisation. Instead, I propose ‘post-institutionalisation’ as a name for the present era of intellectual disability politics, suggesting that we need to attend to continuities and discontinuities of how the group is governed; how paternalism lives on after deinstitutionalisation and how the goals of citizenship inclusion give rise to new technologies of government. I conclude the article by discussing the necessity and the dangers of involving people with intellectual disabilities in the analysis of post-institutional government.</p>},
  author       = {Altermark, Niklas},
  issn         = {0968-7599},
  language     = {eng},
  month        = {10},
  number       = {9},
  pages        = {1315--1332},
  publisher    = {Routledge},
  series       = {Disability and Society},
  title        = {The post-institutional era : visions of history in research on intellectual disability},
  url          = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2017.1322497},
  doi          = {10.1080/09687599.2017.1322497},
  volume       = {32},
  year         = {2017},
}