The dynamics of disability in civil society

Disability and serving the needs of disabled people is a dominant theme in civil society and has been part of many organisations’ charitable purposes. For many people who grow up with or acquire impairments, charity can be quite a dominant force in their lives. There are a lot of reasons for this which are beyond the scope of this report; however the dynamics of charity and its relationship to disabled people have significant consequences for disability leadership in civil society and how disabled leaders in the sector see themselves.

Currently the vast majority of ‘out’ disabled leaders in civil society are associated with disability focused charities or disabled people’s organisations. As part of this research we tried to identify disabled leaders in civil society who were not associated with disability work and we struggled. A number of the disabled leaders we spoke to, both those ‘out’ and those who do not publicly identify as disabled, spoke of the frustration of being pigeonholed in disability-related roles and organisations, and not having the same career options within the sector.

Simultaneously, for many disabled leaders, civil society is something they choose to dissociate from because of the problematic history of power between disability focused charities and disabled people. The charitable model of disability is widely rejected by the disability community because of its ability to perpetuate oppressive attitudes and structures that many disabled people experience (see box on page 15 for an explanation of the charity model of disability). The rejection of the charitable model of disability by politicised disabled people creates tension and friction when trying to group disabled people’s organisations in the category with organisations that they see themselves as being in opposition to.