Abstract
Participating in social activism implies responsibility for its exchange and creation. We focus on Intellectual Disability (ID) as an advocacy site for individuals who are dependent on assistance with activities of daily life, and attend to the process of taking care during social justice projects. Our paper responds to current South African social justice controversies perpetrated against people who may be unable to independently mobilize against increasingly othering – even deadly – socio-political conditions. Underpinned by relational Ethics of Care, voluntary-assisted-advocacy can be a psychologically relational, intersubjective, and societal project that strives for ID citizenship-making and social justice. This paper draws on numerous interviews and a number of ethnographic observations in exploration of ID care. Empirical material was subjected to thematic content analysis, and participant quotes bring our argument to life. Relationships among people with Intellectual Disability (PWID) and non-ID assistant-advocates are asymmetrical. We can either uphold dominant non-ID voices, or transform socio-political ruling relations that maintain dependence on conditions of power and inequality. Our contributions to the advocacy we co-create today will shape the activism we will depend on in the future. We consider relational voluntary-assisted-advocacy as a psychological and ethical resource for sustainable, mutually satisfying social change.
Highlights
Most individuals with disabilities live in the Global South, representing nearly one quarter of the world’s poorest people (Emerson, 2007; Groce, Kembhavi, et al, 2011; Groce, Kett, et al, 2011)
Non-Intellectual Disability (ID) voices could disempower people with Intellectual Disability (PWID) by perpetuating “only what other people [want]” (Clegg, 2006, p. 131). In this discussion we introduce our notion of voluntary-assisted-advocacy, an approach which, if defined at its core, holds the principle that PWID drive social change agendas in relationship with nonID assistant-advocates
By involving PWID directly in their own treatment, change could be initiated in ableist institutional systems
Summary
Most individuals with disabilities live in the Global South, representing nearly one quarter of the world’s poorest people (Emerson, 2007; Groce, Kembhavi, et al, 2011; Groce, Kett, et al, 2011). Violated rights of PWID in private and public settings pertain to sexual and physical abuse; problems accessing services; involuntary institutionalization; denial of consensual sexuality, marriage or parenting; exploitation; unemployment and occupational restrictions (De Vries, Venter, Jacklin, & Oliver, 2013; Drew et al, 2011; Roy, Roy, & Roy, 2012). Relative to levels of functioning (see Figure 1), some individuals with ID can resist subordination, practice self-determination, participate autonomously, and exercise their potential with less assistance. While individuals with Mild ID might be more able to self-advocate, people living with more severe levels of ID would be less likely to do so unaided
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