Critical engagements with the politics of care and disability

Within disability studies, the care relationship between carer and disabled person has historically been viewed as an asymmetrical relation with power inevitably in the hands of the former. This critique was an impetus for the development of a consumer- and user-directed model of care in the US and UK and now Australia. Drawing from the feminist ethic of care, counter critiques have charged that the latter is instrumentalist and masculinist and does not take into account the relational aspects of care. More recently in critical disability studies, there have been attempts to bridge these two seemingly contradictory positions. These attempts have focused on notions of mutual recognition and accessible care among others. While attention to the politics of disability is a current theme in some critical social work, the changing dynamics of care and control within a neoliberal environment and its impact on social work practice with disabled people has been much less interrogated. In this chapter, I argue that current discourse on the politics of care within critical disability studies can provide critical social work with important perspectives with which to inform their own reflections on politicised and ethical practice with this diverse and marginalised group.