With José Madeira Serôdio (Chairman of the Governing Board of the INR - National Institute for Rehabilitation) and Jorge Falcato Simões (MP by the Left Bloc)

Synopsis

Disability can be considered in different ways, each with distinct potential of emancipation for people with disabilities. In Portuguese society disability has been reduced to the disabilities of the bodies and a fatalistic tale of personal tragedy. According to this model of understanding the constraints and obstacles experienced by people with disabilities result directly from their alleged functional limitations. Such conceptions have validated the construction of the image of disabled people as passive and dependent subjects, the silencing of their voices and the cultivation of oppressive and exclusionary social policies for people with disabilities in Portugal. This essay intends to open a reflection on this reality, in order to contribute to a cultural and socio-political questioning of  phenomena of lessening, oppression, poverty and social exclusion experienced by people with disabilities in Portuguese society and the construction of new emancipatory ways.

[about the author]
 

Organised by the  Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation