Disability Inclusion, Rights, and Justice

The World Health Organisation estimates that around 1.3 billion people, 16 percent of the global population, experience significant disability. This number will increase as populations age, and causes of disability – such poverty, malnutrition, conflict, poor access to healthcare, and dangerous work conditions – remain unaddressed. While advancements in research demonstrate how political, social and economic conditions contribute to the disabling of people, far too little is done to ensure that people with disabilities enjoy meaningful participation in society. In this article, we focus on how the Sociology Department at Durham University focuses on disability inclusion, rights, and justice around the world.

Part of the Department’s Criminal Justice, Social Harms and Inequalities research area, Professor Stephen Macdonald applies disability theory to conceptualise encounters of marginalisation and discrimination experienced by disabled people. He researches the experiences of disabled people who have come into contact with the criminal justice system, either as victims, perpetrators or employees. For example, in this article, he explores how disabled people’s homes are being occupied (i.e. cuckooed) by local perpetrators and/or county lines organised criminal gangs. Professor Macdonald teaches the history of Disability Studies, the emergence of disability theory as well as Neurodiversity and Mad Studies to students in the Department’s undergraduate BA Criminology course. He also teaches the intersection between disability theory and criminology theory on the MSc Criminology and Criminal Justice programme. Stephen is an Editor for Disability and Society, an international journal dedicated to publishing research in the field of Disability Studies.

Associate Professor Angela Marques Filipe, Co-Director of the Institute of Medical Humanities, and part of the Department’s Health and Social Theory research area, conducts interdisciplinary research on the social dimensions of health, mental health, and wellbeing. This research has a specific focus on the (co)production and circulation of biomedical and neuroscientific concepts and models, as well as a special interest in the contexts of childhood and youth. Angela has led on a long-term historical and clinical ethnographic study of the diagnosis, management, and critique of ADHD and is co-lead editor of Global Perspectives on ADHD (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018). Drawing on collaborative and engaged research methods, she has also worked on a suite of projects exploring the wider eco-social systemic aspects of neurodisability, vulnerability, and adversity, with a new project on youth ecoanxiety currently under development.

Also part of the Department’s Health and Social Theory research area, Associate Professor Jonathan Wistow, Co-Director in Qualitative Complexity Science, Evaluation and Health at the Durham Research Methods Centre and Co-Director at the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing, teaches on disability in the third-year undergraduate module, Social Policy: Principles and Current Issues. Drawing on the work of Mike Oliver, he examines how post-structuralist criticisms of the Social Model of Disability have had negative implications for disabled people during periods of austerity, without replacing it with something as meaningful. He extends Oliver’s critique to interpret the United Kingdom’s failure to meet its obligations as a member state of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Associate Professor Alice Nah, Co-Director of the Human Rights and Public Law Centre and a member of the Department’s Communities and Social Justice research area, conducts research on the protection and wellbeing of human rights defenders with disabilities. In this publication, co-produced with Protection International and the York Law School at the University of York, she examines how ableism continues to shape decision-making spaces, processes and expectations for participation in activism. She calls for human rights movements to centre the meaningful participation and leadership of people with disabilities, acknowledge and tackle ableism, and ensure that defenders with disabilities have the resources and opportunities they need to advocate for rights.

About 20 percent of students at Durham are disabled. Durham University commits to supporting students with disabilities to ensure that they are able to engage fully in learning. This includes support in the form of a Disability Adviser, the development of an individual Disability Support Plan, and advice about access to resources such as the Disabled Student Allowance.

Join us in questioning how structures in society impact on the lives of people with disabilities, and the measures needed to ensure that they live with dignity, respect, and the full realisation of their rights.

More information on the Department of Sociology’s undergraduate and postgraduate courses is available: Department of Sociology - Durham University