Reconsidering disability in Taiwan: a perspective on globalisation and postcolonialism

Abstract

Postcolonial perspectives on disability studies argue that globalisation has significantly impacted disability politics in many countries. This study uses secondary analysis to explore how globalisation has affected Taiwan’s disability politics. It selects three different themes to illustrate the development of disability politics in Taiwan: special education, disability terminology, and disability classification. These cases show that missionaries, colonisers, and international organisations were the main actors in changing Taiwan’s traditional understandings of disability. However, this development, which differs markedly from that in Western industrialised countries, mainly followed a top-down approach, lacking the political mobilisation of disabled people on the ground. Consequently, the implementation of disability human rights failed to empower Taiwanese disabled people effectively and led to some unexpected outcomes for them. Furthermore, medical and traditional charity-focused thinking about disability has not been altered and remains prevalent in Taiwan.

Points of interest

• Taiwanese culture views disabled people as a pitiful population. Disabled people were mainly isolated and cared for only by their families.

• This research examines in detail how globalisation played a significant role in changing the negative attitudes toward Taiwanese disabled people. For example, transnational organisations asked the Taiwanese government to protect the human rights of disabled people.

• Nevertheless, the Taiwanese government’s support for disabled people did not work well, and many disabled people felt that they faced more difficulties than before.

• This study found that disabled people’s lives were not improved because many local governments did not have sufficient resources, and the Taiwanese government seldom listened to the needs and opinions of disabled people.

• This study is important because it found that disabled people may still face other difficulties when the government tries to implement human rights for them.

Keywords:

• Disability
• globalisation
• postcolonialism
• human rights model
• Taiwan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan. MOST 107-2410-H-305 -017 -MY3, MOST 111-2410-H-305 -050 -MY2.