Declare Independence Independent Living, Oppositional Devices, and Heterotopias

Abstract

This article presents an original and critical interrogation of how disabled activists establish claims and coordinate activities to progress the independent living agenda. The article achieves this by employing Beckett and Campbell’s (2015) concept of ‘oppositional device’, which is used to understand resistance practices and the technologies of power that coalesce around disabled people’s collective action. The article argues that the independent living concept could, similarly, be understood as an oppositional device and this holds potential for furthering the emancipatory claims of disabled people’s social movements. This allows for an understanding of Independent Living Movements as assemblages of technologies that open heterotopias, which engage in the experimentation of what disabled people can be and do through the ideas of independent living. The article draws on empirical data from a study exploring young disabled people’s views and experiences of disability activism across Europe to evidence the claims made.