Disability, caregiving and interpellation: migrant and non‐migrant families of children with disabilities in urban Australia

Abstract

The process of interpellation (and its opposite, misinterpellation) is taken as a metaphor for understanding the lived experience of personal difference. This research focuses on two interpellative experiences: disability and migrant status. Parents of children with moderate to profound intellectual disabilities were asked about their engagement with the community; their access to support programs; and their sense of well‐being. Responses were divided between the non‐migrants (who were misinterpellated once) and migrants (who were misinterpellated twice). Were the migrant parents doubly isolated due to migrant status and carer status? What differences were there between migrant and non‐migrant responses to their parental experience? Although migrant parents were more negative about their children’s future, they rated themselves as equally happy and socially connected as non‐migrant parents.

Keywords:

• caregiving
• children with disabilities
• interpellation
• migration

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Arts Small Grant Scheme. The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments of the anonymous reviewers, and expresses her gratitude to colleagues Ghassan Hage, Kate Darian‐Smith, Jennifer Hubbert and Tamara Kohn for their input and support, and Anika Ervin‐Ward for her research assistance.

Notes

1. Results comprised of 17 responses to a questionnaire sent to caregivers of students enrolled at a special education school, aged 5–18, an approximately 40% return rate. It received Human Research Ethics Committee Approval #0709698.

2. Higgens (1982, 148) argues that Althusser conflates ‘hailing’ with the ideology. While valid, this does not detract from the mutual relational understanding of both the Subject and the State.

3. Althusser’s definition of ideology is ‘an unconscious structure which determines both how people will think and how they will act’ (Montag 2002, 63).

4. Subjects can refuse to be hailed; this process is at the root of social and political resistance.

5. This program includes the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that reduces the cost of prescription drugs.

6. In 2009, the fortnightly amount was AU$105.10.

7. The Disability Support Pension is means‐tested for recipients over 21. Those under 21 also receive the Youth Disability Supplement, which is not means‐tested and is equivalent to the Carer Allowance in value.

8. See Corrigan (2009) for an account of how Australian parents of adult children with disabilities find public programs inadequate.

9. Information for this section was obtained via email exchanges with the school principal.

10. The Student Support Group (SSG) makes recommendations, but the final decision is the parents’. Difficulties occur when expectations don’t match the student’s experience.

11. HACC services are aimed at frail elderly clients and children with a disability; 66% of services go to clients over the age of 70 (Victorian Government Health Information 2008b).

12. The ABS uses ‘resident born overseas’ rather than ‘migrants’.

13. John Howard (Prime Minister 1996–2007) was not an advocate. In 1988 he promoted the ‘One Australia’ policy; among other policies, it called for an end of multiculturalism.

14. Within the category of family migration, two subclasses are granted to relatives of Australian citizens who require care: the aged dependent relative and carer visa.

15. Indeed, of the translated questionnaires sent to high‐risk groups (e.g., recent settlers from Somalia), none were returned. Further work is needed to determine if this coping response is a genuine or a skewed one.

16. See Dobbin (2008) for media coverage of this incident. Later, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship granted the family permanent residency (Evans 2008).