The social model of disability has been very successful within British and American disability studies as well as outside the academy. It has influenced national and international policies on disability in governmental and non-governmental organizations. Yet, notwithstanding these successes, the social model has faced various forms of critique in the last two decades.
The topic of this three-part blog series is a concept that seems quite ubiquitous in the field of disability studies: the social model of disability. Drawing from existing literature, in this this first post I will provide a (very) brief introduction of the social model of disability and its (British) origins.
In 1965, after the public discussions and protests of disability activist organizations had seriously questioned the legitimacy of exclusion and special institutions, Sweden established a National Disability Commission as a first signal that politicians took the demands seriously.
Making the built environment accessible has almost become a matter of course. When dealing with information and language, however, we still have a long way to go: Probably most of us have struggled with the complex jargon of public authorities.
Student Blog VII: The Dutch freedom of education and the implementation of human rights
In 1917 the Dutch parliament agreed, after almost a century of political struggle, to give religious schools the same possibility to receive state funding as public schools. A hundred years later, almost 70 percent of Dutch children go to faith-based schools, including catholic, protestant and Islamic schools, but also nonreligious Montessori and Dalton schools.
Student Blog VI: The gates of the EEC: human rights and the Iberian authoritarian regimes
The date of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is clear: December 10th, 1948. However, the history of its utilization in domains like politics, international law and social activism is way vaguer. In 2010, Samuel Moyn shook up the debate about the history of human rights with his groundbreaking ‘The Last Utopia’.
In his work ‘The Last Utopia’, Samuel Moyn argues that a key reason for the breakthrough being placed within the 1970s is because, inter alia, the human rights movement began to transcend and the national framework. This was related to the concept of state sovereignty, and its steady erosion as the preeminent principle of the international order.
When discussing human rights the Dutch government has always had an interesting position. After the Second World War the attitude on human rights changed in the international community.
Student Blog III: UNICEF and their use of the concept ‘human rights’
The concept human rights is nowadays commonly used to strive for a certain level of development by global organisations and governments. This also applies to development aid organisation UNICEF, which is frequently using the term to define their goals. However, it is striking that not more than twenty years ago the concept was not used at all by UNICEF.
Student Blog II: LGBT human rights in Indonesia
From the 2000’s onwards, provincial bylaws have been implemented in Indonesia that have criminalized certain types of same-sexual practices. This was followed in 2006 by a similar nation-wide law. LGBT human rights organization OutRight Action International has described this process as ‘creeping criminalization’, through which those who engage in same-sexual activities were put in an increasingly precarious situation.