Disability Politics and Care

Book excerpt: Disability Politics and Care examines a provincial direct-funding program to illuminate what happens when people with disabilities take control of their own care arrangements. In addition to investigating responses from a wide range of stakeholders, Christine Kelly reflects on the broader social and political implications of these types of programs. She probes the divide that exists between rejections of care by disability activists, on the one hand, and attempts by feminists to value gendered forms of labour, on the other. Rather than trying to find common ground between these viewpoints, Kelly explores how maintaining a tension between them could positively transform the understanding and practice of care. Enlivened by the voices of disabled people, attendants, and informal supports, this book uses one independent living program as a starting point for untangling much larger philosophical, theoretical, and material questions about (self) determination, (inter)dependence, governance, and justice.