Logics and discourses in disability arts in Sweden: a neo‐institutional perspective

Abstract

Theatre for and with people with intellectual disabilities has gradually become a more frequent and popular work arrangement within the municipal daily activities in Sweden. This article focuses on one of those theatres – Olla – and the aim is to analyse the institutional settings and normative environment surrounding the theatre and the way in which it relates to different institutional rules and expectations. Analytical implications will be drawn against neo‐institutional theory and will show how Olla expresses both an artistic and a therapeutical logic, and that legitimacy is dependent on a loosely coupled formal structure between process and product, art and therapy. These logics are formulated within two different discourses, which leave Olla balancing between being a normalisation project or disability art which puts emphasis on the celebration of difference.