Griet Roets

The (be)comings and goings of ‘developmental disabilities’: the cultural politics of ‘impairment’

Disability should be a concern for those interested in analysing and subverting the cultural politics of education. In this paper we address this concern through connecting critical analyses of ‘developmental disabilities’ (formerly ‘mental retardation’), disability studies and poststructuralism. We target normative constructions of ‘developmental disabilities’ – and we propose alternative dynamic possibilities – through reference to narratives from our political and personal work with people with the label of ‘developmental disabilities’. Our aim is to unveil the ways in which we might understand the cultural formations of ‘impairment’ – as they relate to ‘developmental disabilities’ – in order to propel scholars, activists and practitioners towards a cultural politics of inclusion. First, we summarise some key debates from disability studies that have engaged with ‘impairment’: social model, relational and psychosocial models. We suggest that these debates benefit from a more grounded engagement with poststructuralist ideas. Second, we bring in the work of the poststructuralist thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and the poststructuralist feminist Rosi Braidotti to tackle the social, historical, cultural and political conditions of ‘developmental disabilities’ through experimentation with rhizomes and nomads. In conclusion, we appeal for the development of a cultural politics of ‘impairment’ and ‘developmental disabilities’ that draws upon a vocabulary applicable to the post-modern subject of the contemporary world: as uncertain, productive and moveable.

Daisies on the Road: Tracing the Political Potential of Our Postmodernist, Feminist Approach to Life Story Research.

In this article, the authors trace the possible political potential of their post-modernist, feminist approach to life story research with people with the label of “learning difficulties.” As a self-advocate with an ally, they define tagging along with each other as discovery science. The authors reflect on how they openly and critically write themselves into their life (story) as subjects in dialogue, which makes the driving force to negotiate openness, expose hegemonic power arrangements and inherent silences, highlight secrets of oppression and resistance, and revalue knowledge that risks being disqualified in current social sciences. To be able to do so, and to recognize activism, the authors reveal their choice to creatively apply a variety of research methodologies. Finally, they attempt to rethink and refine conceptualizations that pervade current theoretical developments in disability studies.

Living through exposure to toxic psychiatric orthodoxies: exploring narratives of people with ‘mental health problems’ who are looking for employment on the open labour market

This article explores lived experiences and insights of five people with long‐term ‘mental health problems’, focusing on their search for employment in a disabling society. In our qualitative, inductive analysis we investigate why it seems almost impossible to attain a status as respected adult workers. We present five central findings: (1) losing the game before it starts; (2) internalizing the vicious circle of victim blaming; (3) from control overload to a life with inadequate supports; (4) from crushed dreams back to passive inactivity; (5) signs of resilience and resistance. In meaningful dialogue survivors give voice to alternative and plural epistemological grounds of life with ‘madness’. In our concluding reflections we argue that psychiatric discourses, what we term toxic psychiatric orthodoxies, silence, disable and construct survivors as unemployable.

Challenging the Feminisation of the Workforce: Rethinking the Mind-Body Dualism in Early Childhood Education and Care.

Despite the political and academic debate on the demands for more male workers in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), no European country has reached the benchmark set for 2006 to have 20% male early childhood workers. This has predominantly been countered by challenging the idea that care for the youngest implies an activity ‘that women naturally do’ and by consequently arguing for a higher status and better working conditions for caring jobs. In this article, we analyse the recent ‘schoolification’ of ECEC, and in so doing, we argue that the traditional explanations of the feminisation of the early years workforce do not suffice. In addition, we dwell upon contemporary feminism to challenge the mind–body dualism in discourses and practices of care and explore the concepts of embodied subjectivity and corporeality to further explore pathways to a more equally gendered workforce in early childhood provision.

Parenting as a performance: Parents as consumers and (de)constructors of mythic parenting and childhood ideals

The existing critical literature on constructions of childhood and parenthood is only beginning to listen to what parents have to say. As a result, parents may paradoxically be viewed as passive victims and therefore reduced to be the spectators of what is supposed to be their ‘problem’. The present study analyses dominant parent advice texts in the Flemish community of Belgium, as well as the voices of parents on the Internet. The study confirms the tendencies noticed in critical literature: the tendency to individualize responsibilities and the focus on autonomy in the neoliberal era. In addition it unveils the double bind nature of autonomy in expert discourse. It also illustrates the performative agency of parents, as co-constructors of dominant discourse as well as contesting this discourse. In so doing, the study complements the existing vein of literature with the way in which parents think of and experience the dominant parenting discourse.

Rediscovering recovery: reconceptualizing underlying assumptions of citizenship and interrelated notions of care and support.

Over the last few decades, research, policy, and practice in the field of mental health care and a complementary variety of social work and social service delivery have internationally concentrated on recovery as a promising concept. In this paper, a conceptual distinction is made between an individual approach and a social approach to recovery, and underlying assumptions of citizenship and interrelated notions and features of care and support are identified. It is argued that the conditionality of the individual approach to recovery refers to a conceptualization of citizenship as normative, based on the existence of a norm that operates in every domain of our society. We argue that these assumptions place a burden of self-governance on citizens with mental health problems and risk producing people with mental health problems as nonrecyclable citizens. The social approach to recovery embraces a different conceptualization of citizenship as relational and inclusive and embodies the myriad ways in which the belonging of people with mental health problems can be constructed in practice. As such, we hope to enable social services and professionals in the field to balance their role in the provision of care and support to service users with mental health problems.

The Researcher and the Beast: Uncovering Processes of Othering and Becoming Animal in Research Ventures in the Field of Critical Disability Studies

In this article, we discuss not only the complexity of some difficult ethical issues but also the peculiar and reciprocal engagements that emerged during the research process carried out with Jimmy Sax, along with the ways in which we have attempted to deal with the ethics of research to avoid a reproduction of processes of Othering in the field of critical disability studies. In the existing body of qualitative research literature, an increasing number of researchers document their experience of the issue of situational and relational research ethics. However, since research evolves as an activity embedded in social, political, and historical contexts, we argue that qualitative researchers should also embrace sociopolitical research ethics. In that vein, inspired by poststructuralist (and) feminist philosophers, we identify and discuss two different conceptualizations of research ethics, referring to care for the other and care of the self.

One size fits all? The social construction of dis-employ-abled women

This article is based on an evaluation of a labour-market training programme for women with ‘mental health problems’ in a social workplace in Belgium. The research team explored the retrospective insider perspectives on the work aspirations of the women involved in the programme to identify critical dynamics in their high drop-out from the social workplace. The central findings provide evidence of a prevalent one-size-fits-all discourse in these practices wherein complex and interrelated processes of discrimination take place that are based on both disability and gender. The findings demonstrate that the social workplace functions as a male bastion, in which the oversized overalls that women are forced to wear are symbolically relevant. In conclusion, we discuss and challenge the dominance of the neo-liberal norm of economic productivity and employability.

Living between borderlands: discovering a sense of nomadic subjectivity throughout Rosa's life story

In this paper, we will intersect the disciplinary characters of gender studies and disability studies in order to tackle taken-for-granted discourses which objectify women with ‘learning difficulties’. We will draw attention to ongoing debates about the impairment/disability divide which we expose to insights from poststructuralist feminism(s), with the aim of bringing the body-and-mind-in-process back into the socio-political project of disability studies. We will investigate the life story of Rosa, a single mother with ‘learning difficulties’, and explore the notion of nomadic subjectivity, borrowed from the poststructuralist thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and from the poststructuralist feminist philosopher Rosi Braidotti for its new political process ontology. In line with feminist nomadic inquiries, we will try to identify possible sites and strategies of resistance towards the politics of bio-power by addressing the ways that Rosa stands and moves in a web of oppressive discourses and practices. ‘Living between borderlands’ obviously allows her to open up new life worlds: she transforms and reconfigures her self situated in a multiplicity of shifting contexts wherein differentiated dimensions of time, space and relationality are all important.

Looking at Lived Experiences of Self-Advocacy through Gendered Eyes: Becoming "Femme Fatale" with/out "Learning Difficulties".

In this article, we attempt to intersect the interdisciplinary characters of disability studies and gender studies, in order to make sense of the activism and lived knowledge of/with two women with the label of ‘learning difficulties’. Inspired by Deleuze and Guattari’s anti‐essentialist notion of devenirs‐particules, we find our multiple selves involved in cross‐cutting relational storytelling, as such destabilising essentialist, biological determinism towards women with/out the label of ‘learning difficulties’. Thus in becoming femme(s) fatale(s), we make the most of a science capable of grasping the continual interplay between agency, structure and context, creating a ‘becoming space’ where we, as activists with our academic allies, can think and act with one another.