Creating and Reshaping Civic Space for All:
The Role and Meaning of Centers for Independent Living with Disabilities
JEON Geunbae [Director General, Daegu Saram Center for Independent Living]
The category of ‘citizen’ did not include people with disabilities. The state duty stopped at passively protecting people with disabilities. Many people with disabilities were forced to live in isolated island-like spaces (especially disabled-designated residential facilities), unable to interact with others in the wider community. The ‘citizenship’ and ‘rights’ envisioned around non-disabled people in the name of ‘welfare’, ‘care’, and ‘integration’ have in fact created more specialized rather than universal spaces. While support and resources for people with disabilities has expanded, it has been in the sense of expanding spaces for ‘people with disabilities’ rather than creating and reorganizing spaces for equal citizens. This was challenged by the mass civic movement that advocated for people with severe disabilities that emerged in Korean society in the 2000s. Through the movements for the right to mobility, the institutionalization of activity support services, the right to education, the enactment of anti-discrimination laws, the right to deinstitutionalization, and for labor rights for people with severe disabilities, a system began to be created for independent living in the community rather than for institutionalization. One of the biggest drivers of this movement is the independent living centers for people with disabilities that have been established and operated mainly by the disability rights movement.
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South Korea's disability policy has been in place since the 1980s, when the Disability Welfare Act was enacted, and expanded through the 1990s to include welfare facilities centered on rehabilitation, training, and medical care. The history of independent living centers for people with disabilities is relatively young, established only after the mobility rights movement in the 2000s and the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The government has only been supporting some of these centers for about 20 years, and the level of support has been very low. Despite the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities normative shift from ‘welfare’ to ‘rights’, the Korean government still has a strong culture of considering people with disabilities as recipients of welfare services through traditional welfare facilities. Depending on the nature of the government, some things happen to suppress or intentionally reduce the role and meaning of independent living centers for people with disabilities. However, the spirit and planning of universal design as a civic space for all is possible when spaces that ensure the real participation of people with disabilities, such as centers for independent living, are more sustainable.
Creating and Reshaping Civic Space for All:
The Role and Meaning of Centers for Independent Living with Disabilities
JEON Geunbae [Director General, Daegu Saram Center for Independent Living]
The category of ‘citizen’ did not include people with disabilities. The state duty stopped at passively protecting people with disabilities. Many people with disabilities were forced to live in isolated island-like spaces (especially disabled-designated residential facilities), unable to interact with others in the wider community. The ‘citizenship’ and ‘rights’ envisioned around non-disabled people in the name of ‘welfare’, ‘care’, and ‘integration’ have in fact created more specialized rather than universal spaces. While support and resources for people with disabilities has expanded, it has been in the sense of expanding spaces for ‘people with disabilities’ rather than creating and reorganizing spaces for equal citizens. This was challenged by the mass civic movement that advocated for people with severe disabilities that emerged in Korean society in the 2000s. Through the movements for the right to mobility, the institutionalization of activity support services, the right to education, the enactment of anti-discrimination laws, the right to deinstitutionalization, and for labor rights for people with severe disabilities, a system began to be created for independent living in the community rather than for institutionalization. One of the biggest drivers of this movement is the independent living centers for people with disabilities that have been established and operated mainly by the disability rights movement.
.
.
.
South Korea's disability policy has been in place since the 1980s, when the Disability Welfare Act was enacted, and expanded through the 1990s to include welfare facilities centered on rehabilitation, training, and medical care. The history of independent living centers for people with disabilities is relatively young, established only after the mobility rights movement in the 2000s and the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The government has only been supporting some of these centers for about 20 years, and the level of support has been very low. Despite the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities normative shift from ‘welfare’ to ‘rights’, the Korean government still has a strong culture of considering people with disabilities as recipients of welfare services through traditional welfare facilities. Depending on the nature of the government, some things happen to suppress or intentionally reduce the role and meaning of independent living centers for people with disabilities. However, the spirit and planning of universal design as a civic space for all is possible when spaces that ensure the real participation of people with disabilities, such as centers for independent living, are more sustainable.