‘Some people are never going to be able to do that’. Challenges for people with intellectual disability in the 21st century

Abstract

This article surveys contemporary macro social, economic and political issues and considers how they define the context of life for people with intellectual disability in the early 21st century. It suggests that processes associated with globalisation intensify the agenda of neo‐liberalism to fundamentally determine their everyday social arrangements and experiences, at least in western democracies such as the USA, the UK and Australia. Risk has now emerged as an overarching principle informing social responses to intellectual disability, while marketisation and privatisation have given rise to a complex dynamic whereby demands for individualism have become interconnected with states of dependency. Emerging technologies of citizenship have seen paradoxical notions of choice, consent, needs and interests applied to people with intellectual disability. These new forms of governance pose personal challenges at an individual level and political challenges to the collective of self‐advocacy in its project for change in a globalising world.

Keywords:

• intellectual disability
• neo‐liberalism
• privatisation
• governance
• Australia
• UK