Deficient bodies and inefficient resources: the case of disability assessment in Bulgaria

Abstract

This paper analyses disability assessment, conceived as a dominant way of assigning disability status within the modern welfare state. It explores the procedure and outcome of the assessment in their intrinsic relation to defining humanness by utilising an approach which is novel for disability studies -a Heideggerian, existentialphenomenological critique of the modern reduction of human beings to objects and/or resources. This critical philosophical framework is supported by a sociological analysis, drawing on the science and technology studies concept of 'boundary object'. Using the legally codified disability assessment in Bulgaria as its case study, the paper nevertheless formulates broader conclusions concerning the reduction of disabled people to deficient bodies and inefficient resources, linking it to the modern domination of medicalisation and productivism. In conclusion, it proposes an alternative, holistic view of what it means to be a human being, drawing on Heidegger's notion of 'being-in-the-world' and his critique of modernity.

From State Socialist to Neoliberal Productivism: Disability Policy and Invalidation of Disabled People in the Postsocialist Region

“…Yet on the other hand, the same interventions prevented disabled people from working and, consequently, from acquiring the independence and status exclusively provided by paid employment in a productivist society. Disability assessment rendered impairment in terms of inability to work, thus simultaneously framing disabled people as resources and denying this status to them (Mladenov, 2011). Productive activity in sheltered workplaces was -and still is -grossly devalued in comparison to mainstream employment (Zaviršek, 2014).…”

“…that, notwithstanding some improvements in disability rights, 'many Soviet-era structures, institutions, and practices are still in place either de facto or de jure'. Mladenov (2011) has emphasized the state socialist origins of the medical-productivist disability assessment in contemporary Bulgaria, criticizing its invalidating effects. According to Zaviršek (2014), the new forms of sheltered employment introduced in postsocialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the 2000s have tended to reproduce the segregation and stigma that characterized state socialist disability services.…”

“…Reports and analyses of disability assessment in state socialist and postsocialist countries (International Disability Network, 2007;Mladenov, 2011;Phillips, 2009) disclose a recurring pattern of institutions, discourses and practices that could be summarized as follows: For the purposes of providing support, the state socialist administration rendered disability exclusively in terms of inability or decreased ability to work.…”

“…The degree of this 'lack' was expressed by allocating the individual undergoing the assessment to a particular 'invalidity' group. This mechanism of reducing disability to medically identifiable inability to work has survived the demise of state socialism and has continued to dominate disability assessment in postsocialist countriesexamples include Armenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Russia and Ukraine (International Disability Network, 2007;Mladenov, 2011;Phillips, 2009).…”

“…As suggested in the previous section, state socialist productivism was a response to the imperatives of accelerated industrialization under conditions of economic backwardness and regime competition, which legitimized the generalization of wage labor to include the whole of society. It is therefore impossible to effectively challenge the productivist reduction of human beings to resources and the attendant invalidation of disabled people as 'inefficient resources' (Mladenov, 2011) without decommodifying human labor.…”