Whose identity politics? – Lessons for emerging critical disability geography in Hungary
In response to the economic crisis in 2009, the Hungarian government reduced the level of support for the employment of impaired people. The withdrawal of this state support has not only resulted in a massive wave of dismissals, but has also transformed some peripheral settlements into spaces of res...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | deu |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2013-10-01
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| Series: | Geographica Helvetica |
| Online Access: | http://www.geogr-helv.net/68/171/2013/gh-68-171-2013.pdf |
| Summary: | In response to the economic crisis in 2009, the Hungarian government reduced
the level of support for the employment of impaired people. The withdrawal
of this state support has not only resulted in a massive wave of dismissals,
but has also transformed some peripheral settlements into spaces of
resistance. The research presented in this paper was conducted to understand
the nature of political actions organised in Békés County (one of
Hungary's disadvantaged regions) in order to support the social employment
of impaired people. By analysing these political actions we have highlighted
certain contradictions of applying the concept of identity politics in a
post-socialist context, and the advantages of a combined, biosocial model.
On the one hand, the outline of the political and economic situation helped
us understand that the analysed social protests only resembled identity
politics. In reality, they may even have contributed to the reproduction of
ableism. On the other hand, by integrating individual experiences into the
social model of disability we could also reveal that according to our
impaired interviewees, it is not only their impairments and/or disabilities
that render daily life difficult. Their firm call for changes in both
economic and regional policy suggests that the deliberate and combined use
of identity and class politics would be particularly important. Overall, our
results suggest that it is essential for scholars in Hungary to engage more
strongly in critical disability geography and to thus help the approach take
root and develop further. |
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| ISSN: | 0016-7312 2194-8798 |