Community participation and inclusion: people with disabilities defining their place

Authors: Milner, Paul¹; Kelly, Berni²

Source: Disability & Society, Volume 24, Number 1, January 2009 , pp. 47-62(16)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

Disability-related public policy currently emphasises reducing the number of people experiencing exclusion from the spaces of the social and economic majority as being the pre-eminent indicator of inclusion. Twenty-eight adult, New Zealand vocational service users collaborated in a participatory action research project to develop shared understandings of community participation. Analysis of their narratives suggests that spatial indices of inclusion are quiet in potentially oppressive ways about the ways mainstream settings can be experienced by people with disabilities and quiet too about the alternative, less well sanctioned communities to which people with disabilities have always belonged. Participants identified five key attributes of place as important qualitative antecedents to a sense of community belonging. The potential of these attributes and other self-authored approaches to inclusion are explored as ways that people with disabilities can support the policy objective of effecting a transformation from disabling to inclusive communities.

Keywords: community participation; social inclusion; social policy

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687590802535410

Affiliations: 1: Donald Beasley Institute Inc., Dunedin, New Zealand 2: School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, Queen's University Belfast, UK

Publication date: 2009-01-01

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