‘I haven’t got anywhere safe’: disabled people’s experiences of hate and violence within the home

Abstract

This paper explores disabled people’s experiences of ‘everyday’ hate within and around their home. The characteristics of the home make it a particularly interesting site of analysis, as many of the features offer protections and risks simultaneously. Moreover, the home is a particularly important space within our everyday lives, particularly for disabled people who may encounter marginalization within other social spaces. In this article, I consider how encounters within the home shape the way in which the space is made, and how disabled people are able to be within them. I explore the home as a space where persistent and repeated violence can occur, which in turn, shapes how bodies come to occupy (or not), their homes and to what meanings the home takes on. In an attempt to explore this, I offer different conceptualizations of the home as a site of refuge, control and containment, avoidance, and resistance.