Chapter 7: Responding To Otherness: The Need for Experimental-Relational Spaces

The history of people with a disability is one marked by being put aside, with labels such as impaired, defective, deviant, or abnormal (Goodey, 2011; Oliver, 1996; Ravaud & Stiker, 2001). Since the 1980s, as part of an emancipatory movement many people with disabilities have responded to this by raising their voice against the medical model that reduced them to their disability, and by protesting against stigmatizing labels, discrimination and marginalization. They have argued for a valued position in society, as full-fledged citizens (Atkinson, 1999; Goodley, 2011; Gray & Jackson, 2002; UPIAS, 1976), and lately policy makers worldwide have placed deinstitutionalization, normalization, inclusion, and participation on their agendas (United Nations, 2006).