Disabled people’s Independent Living Movement in Scotland: a time for reflection

Abstract

On the 20th anniversary of the Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living, this paper looks at the situation of the disabled people's Independent Living Movement (ILM) in Scotland. With the passing of the Social Care (Self-directed Support) Scotland Act, in 2013, self-directed support became the default position within the assessment process for social care. Such success may have marginally improved the liberal values within the ILM-the individual's freedom, dignity, choice and control. However, the neo-liberal managerialism within today's Scottish social care system, operated by Scottish local authorities, is seen by the movement as impeding disabled people's group rights and civic participation, by cutting or withdrawing funding to the collective and its peer services. The consequence of such impediment not only restricts the group's participative citizenship, but that of the individual. The paper calls for some time to reflect on this dilemma.

Declare Independence

“…It can reorder knowledge and understanding of support to prioritise principles of fairness, justice, and self-determination. It has transformative possibilities for the self, such as individuals determining contemporary restrictions as unnecessary (Angelova-Mladenova, 2019), and identifying commonality with other oppressed and disabled bodies experiencing subjugation (Elder-Woodward, 2016). Independent living has the potential to forge alternative ways of thinking about disabled people's access to, and use of, support and assistance.…”

“…Operationalising these ideas requires disabled people's social movements engaged in progressing independent living -often referred to as the Independent Living Movement (ILM) (Willig Levy, 1989;Hayashi & Okuhira, 2008;Elder-Woodward, 2016) -to produce heterotopias (Foucault, 1984). Heterotopias, here, are spaces formed to destabilise the assumed truths and knowledge surrounding disabled people's support requirements, and experiment with what independent living can become and do.…”

Special Issue Editorial

“…) The reduction of Independent Living to a neoliberal assault on the welfare state grossly misrepresents the movement. This misrepresentation has been enabled by other misconceptions, such as the rendering of Independent Living in terms of selfsufficiency that has sometimes been used to legitimise cuts to social support amidst creeping austerity (Elder-Woodward, 2016;Manji, 2018). However, as already argued, Independent Living activists have actively campaigned against austerity measures.…”