Rethinking Disability and Human Rights: Participation, Equality and Citizenship

This book examines the role of disability in the right to political and social participation, an act of citizenship that many disabled people do not enjoy.

The disability rights movement does not accept the use of disability to create limits on citizenship, which poses challenges for contemporary societies that will become ever greater as the science and technology of enhancing human abilities evolves. Comprised of eight chapters, three interludes, and a postscript written by leading scholars and disability rights activists, the book explores citizenship for people with disabilities from an interdisciplinary perspective using the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as a point of departure and the concept of universal design as a strategy for actualizing full citizenship for all. Situating disability in its historical and cultural contexts, the authors offer directions for rethinking citizenship, including implications for access to the built environment, information and communication systems, education, work, community life and politics.

This book will be of interest to all scholars and students working in disability studies, planning, architecture, public health, rehabilitation, social work, and education.

Inger Marie Lid is a Professor of Public Health and Rehabilitation at VID Specialized University. Her research interests include ethics, citizenship, universal design accessibility, and Human Rights. Lid has authored and edited many books, chapters and articles. Recent publications include "The significance of relations. Rethinking autonomy in a disability perspective" in Lived Citizenship for Persons in Vulnerable Life Situations. Theories and Practices (Scandinavian University Press). She is currently engaged in research on inclusion in higher education.

Edvard Steinfeld, Arch. D., is a SUNY Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access at the School of Architecture, University at Buffalo, State University of New York. His research interests include accessibility, universal design, and design for aging. He is currently engaged in research and public education on design for gender diversity

Michael Rembis is the Director of the Center for Disability Studies and an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University at Buffalo (SUNY). Rembis has authored or edited many books, articles, and book chapters. He is currently completing a book entitled, Writing Mad Lives - in the Age of the Asylum. He is the coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of Disability History.