Disability, spaces and places of policy exclusion

Disability, Spaces and Places of Policy Exclusion is an edited collection that aims to address a lack of consideration of the spatial dimensions of social policy in disability studies. Specifically focusing on the areas of law and policy, the book highlights recent contributions utilising insights from geography to analyse disabled people’s exclusion from society. The collection is explicitly situated as building on previous work on ‘disability geographies’ and includes writings from theorists working across disciplines of geography, sociology and social policy. This mix of authors will appeal to readers with a broad range of interests. While the majority of chapters address the UK context, and are thus particularly pertinent to a UK audience, the application of spatial and temporal frames has wider relevance. Also, two chapters report comparative work considering the United Kingdom and other nations, while a further two respectively examine the Irish legislative context and highlight a lack of attention to issues of disability and poverty in the Global South, so this collection will also be of interest to international audiences.

The book is structured into two parts: the first addressing the conceptualisation of disability and the spatial dimensions of law and policy, and the second considering more empirical work around the impacts of policy changes which affect disabled people’s experiences of and relationships with space and place. How policy shapes experiences of and interactions with public space is a key theme in this book. Imrie considers how a neo-liberalising logic in UK policy prioritises productive bodies, simultaneously writing out consideration of different embodiments. This is reflected in the design of different spaces, including homes, public transport and town centres, that deny access to people with various impairments. Reeve, meanwhile, focuses on the psycho-emotional impacts that interactions with such inaccessible spaces can have on disabled people. She describes how a mismatch between ‘reasonable’ adjustments and fully equal access leads to the experience of ‘paradoxical landscapes’ (100) – those where accessibility seems to be in evidence but are not experienced as such by disabled people who use those spaces. Relatedly, Roulstone and Morgan argue the need to consider the ‘psycho-social environment’ (67). They describe how recent shifts in government policy and rhetoric have ‘jeopardised’ public space for disabled people through increasing stigmatisation and questioning of their entitlements to welfare support.

While analysis of spatial relations is central to this collection, issues of place and temporality are also highlighted. Grover and Soldatic’s insightful contribution analyses the temporal similarities and differences between UK and Australian income-replacement benefit regimes. This chapter demonstrates a novel approach to considering the implications of different policies and has relevance for the concept of ‘crip time’ (for example, Kafer 2013). Warren and Garthwaite’s chapter also extends beyond the spatial in their discussion of ‘biographies of place’. They argue for ‘a more integrated understanding of spaces and places’ (115) to understand how different narratives of health and disability develop and how these influence the engagement of different communities with wider top-down initiatives. They highlight the need for policy approaches that create meaningful engagement through acknowledging the individual and collective agency of people and communities.

Uniquely in this collection but providing a useful critique to the other chapters, Grech highlights the need for northern disability studies to take more account of different disability experiences in the Global South. He describes the tendency of northern approaches to ignore, oversimplify or homogenise discussion of the majority world as well as the lack of attention to the work of disability scholars in the South. Different ‘spaces of poverty’ (52), however, give rise to different understandings of disability. This chapter raises important questions about how disability as a fluid and changeable concept could be used in future work to more fully reflect a global range of experiences.

In a book containing multiple accounts of empirical work with disabled people, including four chapters with direct reference to the accounts of disabled participants, it was slightly jarring that two contributors chose only to include the perspectives of service providers in the research they reported (although one did note that a following piece of research would focus on the experiences of disabled people accessing those services). This omission left their respective chapters somewhat unbalanced. It was, however, interesting to be able to compare two critical perspectives on social care provision for people with learning difficulties. Hall focuses on a current approach in Scotland which incorporates co-production and self-directed support, with underlying principles of interdependence. Power, meanwhile, considers the development of personalisation – and its link to a more individualistic agenda – across Canadian, British and Irish policy contexts. His chapter highlights the opportunities and risks of a ‘place-less’ provision of services which paradoxically relies on the ability of those providing support to do so in a way that takes increasing account of place.

Two further chapters consider the position of people with learning difficulties in relation to sex and consent. Edwards interrogates the ways in which a piece of Irish legislation on sexual consent – based on outdated, medicalised assumptions about people with learning difficulties – through a focus on and neglect of particular issues, reshapes spaces as well as interactions in those spaces. Hollomotz and Roulstone, meanwhile, examine how the experiences of people with learning difficulties in respect of their sexual citizenship are influenced by social care policies and procedures which control access to private space. With four out of the 10 chapters specifically addressing issues concerning people with learning difficulties, the book will be of particular interest for those whose work focuses on learning disability.

Overall Disability, Spaces and Places of Policy Exclusion represents an important contribution to the literature addressing geographies of disability. The collection offers rich evidence for the relevance of a spatial and temporal analysis of social policy, and the variety of topics will be useful to all those working with or studying issues of disability and geography.

Deborah Fenney
School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
[email protected]
© 2016 Deborah Fenney
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2016.1198552