Introduction to, and Interview with, Disabled People Against Cuts

Debbie Humphry, Ellen Clifford, Andy Greene, Paula Peters and Keith Walker

City, 2020, vol. 24, issue 1-2, 376-399

Abstract: The interview with Disabled People Against Cuts campaign group illuminates ways that disabled people in the UK are campaigning on and off the streets against neoliberal austerity measures and, more widely, against the capitalist city. As the development of cities was structured by capitalism, disabled people have, in so many material, organisational and symbolic ways, been excluded by a capitalist city not built in their image. Welfare capitalism brought many gains for disabled people, but neoliberal capitalism has been ripping them away in the most brutal and demeaning of ways. Disabled people have been pushed to the margins in both industrial and post-industrial cities that have sought the most productive waged labour and ideal bodies. As such, the capitalist city disables people, and thus by default the city that disabled people must fight for is an anti-capitalist city based on use value. As the interview with DPAC demonstrates, disabled people are fighting both collaboratively and confrontationally, rolling their way into new spaces and working collectively to model what a future society could look like. It is therefore argued that disabled people's protests present a core challenge to the capitalist city, and thus their presence in both urban street movements and academic debate is crucial for any radical Right to the City movement. Disabled people are calling for an ableing city shaped to meet the needs of its inhabitants, rather than its inhabitants being coerced into shaping themselves to fulfil the needs of the capitalist city. As such, the city that disabled people call for is not just for them, but for anyone who is segregated, excluded or dispossessed by the capitalist city.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2020.1739458

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