Re‐Imagining Inclusive and Compassionate Futures: Challenging the Bureaucracy of Disability Through Compassion

Stuart Read and Anne Parfitt
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Stuart Read: School of Education, Bath Spa University, UK
Anne Parfitt: School of Education, Bath Spa University, UK

Social Inclusion, 2026, vol. 14

Abstract: Taken‐for‐granted societal capitalist bureaucracy whereby narrow definitions of human value are accepted without question or critique risks devaluing the embodiment of disability, and eroding attempts to build a caring and compassionate society. This article, written by two disabled academics, describes empirical data collected with eight disabled people and allies across two focus groups, in which we discussed how compassion, when viewed from a disability activist perspective, can allow for reimagined compassionate futures whereby collective humanities and well‐being can be nurtured. Our inquiry‐by‐method critically explores what compassion is from a disability perspective and how this view of compassion disrupts ableist socio‐cultural, economic, and political bureaucratisation of life. Further, we argue that compassion can provide disabled people and allies with agency to guard against the worst dehumanising impacts of bureaucracy, by caring for themselves and each other. To conclude our article, we share a novel cripped compassion framework for implementing inclusive compassionate futures, which can challenge ableist bureaucratisation.

Keywords: ableism; bureaucracy; caring; collective; compassion; disability; trust; well‐being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:socinc:v14:y:2026:a:11929

DOI: 10.17645/si.11929

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