Rethinking Disability: the Global Impact of the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) in Historical Perspective

Project Information

DISABILITY

Grant agreement ID: 648115

DOI

10.3030/648115

Project closed

EC signature date 28 September 2015

Start date 1 October 2015

End date 31 May 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 991 231,00

EU contribution

€ 1 991 231,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 5 - DISABILITY (Rethinking Disability: the Global Impact of the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) in Historical Perspective)

Reporting period: 2021-10-01 to 2022-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Approximately 10%-15% of the world’s population is estimated to have a form of disability and this number is expected to rise in the next few decades, fuelled by population aging, environmental degradation and social violence. Disability has consequences not only for the individuals concerned, but also for their families and their environment, it is a human and social issue that touches us all. People in different cultural settings ascribe different meanings to disability; consequently, its repercussions are both culturally contingent and universal. This project brings together the local and global dimensions of disability and examines the interaction, tension and conflict between these two aspects by undertaking the first comprehensive study of the far-reaching political, societal and cultural implications of the International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP), a landmark event organized by the United Nations in 1981, which appears to have gone virtually unrecognized in scholarship. The hypothesis of this project is that the International Year, together with its counterpart, the International Decade of Disabled Persons (1982-1993) was the most significant watershed in the modern history of disability. It was the first occasion to place disability into a global context by endorsing it authoritatively as a human rights issue and thereby raising the question as to how the concept may be understood in a multicultural world. The project’s innovative contribution lies in connecting the IYDP to broader political, social and cultural processes in the last quarter of the twentieth century and thereby bringing disability in a global context to the attention of mainstream historical scholarship. Objectives: 1. to examine the IYDP’s impact on human rights discourses and to scrutinize their applicability within global settings; 2. to document the IYDP’s contribution to emancipation and social change and to consider the different trajectories of emancipation in various parts of the world; 3. to assess the ways in which the IYDP influenced everyday life experiences, galvanized identity formation and inspired the emergence of a distinct subculture; 4. to analyze the transnational exchanges and knowledge transfer in conjunction with the IYDP and to examine how the ‘Western’- oriented discourses penetrating the developing world interacted with the local environment. Undertaking research via the lens of disability demonstrates that the concept is paramount for our understanding of how societies treat their vulnerable members, how they maintain social order and how they define progress. No debates on equity, inclusion and diversity are complete without having recourse to the issue of disability.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Events organized: 1. Whose Welfare? Fresh Perspectives on the Post-war Welfare State and its Global Entanglements, Leiden 19-20 January, 2. ‘Calendar Propaganda’ of Human Rights? Historical Perspectives on the United Nations’ Global Observances, Leiden University, 13-15 June, 2017, 3. Workshop Historians without Borders: Writing Histories of International Organizations, The Hague, 22-23 March 2018, 4. Interdisciplinary Approaches to Disability: the MENA Region in the Modern Period, Leiden University, in collaboration with the Netherlands-Flemish Institute, Cairo (Egypt), 25-26 November 2018, 5. Criptic Identities. Historicizing the identity formation of persons with disabilities across the globe, 21-22 March,2019, Leiden 6.Virtuous Suffering: new perspectives on the ethics of suffering for critical global health and justice, Leiden, 16-17 September 2019. 7. Disability in Public Life and Cultural Expression Seminar, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, 2 December 2019. Publication highlights included Monika Baár and Paul van Trigt (eds.), Marginalized Groups, Inequalities and the Post-War Welfare State: Whose Welfare?, London: Routledge, 2019, the special issue “International Days at the United Nations: Expanding the Scope of Diplomatic Histories” in the journal Diplomatica 1, no. 2 (2019), articles by Monika Baár, PI: “Seeking inclusion through redefining expertise: the changing spatial contours of disability activism in the long 1970s”, European Review of History 29, no. 3 (2022): 452-568, Paul van Trigt, Postdoc, “Belated Integration. Disability in International Human Rights Law”, in Jan Eckel and Daniel Stahl (eds.), Embattled Visions: Human Rights since 1990, Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2022: 101-120, PhD candidate Anais Van Ertvelde “Welfare: defended, questioned, complemented? Belgian welfare arrangements in the 1970s–1980s from the perspective of disability organizations”, in Monika Baár and Paul van Trigt (eds.), Marginalized Groups, Inequalities and the Post-War Welfare State: Whose Welfare?, London: Routledge, 2019: 137-154, PhD candidate Anna Derksen “Das Internationale Jahr der Behinderten 1981 in historischer Perspektive” (co-author Monika Baár), in Theresia Degener and Marc von Miquel (eds.), Aufbrüche und Barrieren: Behindertenpolitik und Behindertenrecht in Deutschland und Europa seit den 1970er-Jahren, Bielefeld: Transcript, 2019: 161-184, PhD candidate Sam de Schutter “A Global Approach to Local Problems? How to Write a Longer, Deeper, and Wider History of the International Year of Disabled Persons in Kenya”, Diplomatica 1, no. 2 (December 2019): 221-242. The opportunity to participate in the ERcComics scheme greatly enhanced the exploitation and dissemination of results.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The 'state of the art' in the global study of disability history barely exists, and it is primarily based on Anglo-Saxon research frameworks. This project moved beyond the state of the art in various ways. It initiated a multi-level (international, regional/national and local) analytical framework and it pointed to the intricate relationship between these levels, rather than just focusing on one level. Whereas existing accounts typically focus on one type of disability, the project had a comprehensive approach. While acknowledging the obvious medical aspects of disability, this project did not perceive it an undesired apolitical and asocial bodily condition, but as a key defining social category. It demonstrated that studying disability can offer a new prism through which to shed new light on several societal problems. The project paid attention to the so-called 'disability protests' which have so far mainly been studied only in Britain and the US and also showed how the disability movement was interrelated with other social movements. It traced disabled activists' contribution to the coming into being of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Moreover, it also demonstrated that disability can manifest itself as a form of social and cultural identity which can be a source of pride and of a vibrant subculture. Although the majority of the world’s disabled population resides in the global South, until very recently the study of disability – its theoretical underpinnings, its methodology and its geographical coverage – has remained dominated by scholarship in the global North. Most legal documents operate with a ‘prototypical person with disability’ which has continued to reflect the circumstances of citizens in well-resourced democratic countries and at best those of the urban elite of activists in developing countries. The project broadened Eurocentric approaches by initiating research on a global scale.

ERcCOmics event at Sorbonne University

MEP-Scientist Pairing Scheme, EP, with MP Adam Kosa