Reflections on Disability Movement Practice and Politics

• Main Authors: TIEN, SHU-LAN, 田淑蘭
• Other Authors: HSIA, LIN-CHING
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/91242133869994045984

博士 === 輔仁大學 === 心理學系 === 104 === I began my activism as a labor organizer in 1990 then moved to the disability field since 1999. During my 25 years career, I have worked in labor organizations, governments, political party, and universities, collaborated with various disability groups and professionals. In 2008, I went to Toronto, Canada to study the psychiatric survivor movement and disability studies for a few years. These cross field, sectors and continents experiences have enriched and broadened my reflection on social oppression, regulation, alternative practices and politics of social organizing, especially around disability movement. I identify myself as a practitioner situated in specific historical context, positioned to facilitate community building and dialogue. In it, transformation happens among individuals but also as groups, people learn to recognize the oppressive mechanism, create alternatives and relate to each other as humans not labels. This dissertation manifests some parts of my practice in the past dozen years. In the beginning, I reflect on the social political background and history of disability movement in Taiwan. Then, I review our work of disability employment at the Labor Bureau, City of Taipei from 1999 to 2003, describe the fundamental reform of democratic public administration. After I left the Bureau, I have been collaborating with different disability groups and workers in various forms since 2004, witnessing the institutionalization of disability services, and how Positivism, Neoliberalism and New Public Management ideology grew to its dominance. Nonetheless, resistance and innovation have never stopped to evolve in the community. Through formulating a framework of contextual differences across Taiwan and Toronto, I compare the landscape of psychiatric disability movements and point out the issues of identity politics. In final chapter, I summarize my perspectives on primary political concerns of the disability movement in Taiwan including: are we actually in social model era? Can we change the systemic situation of people with disabilities through identity politics and rights campaigns? In the end, I propose to employ Nancy Fraser’s social justice theory to reframe our political analysis of disability injustice, combined with Lin-Chin Hsia’s collaboration methodology of building critical community, the disability movement therefore will be part of the struggle for the liberation of humanity.