“A Person with a Disability Always Has to Show and Do More…”Living with Sensory Impairment Under Socialism: Memories and Stories
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51663/pnz.65.1.07Keywords:
testimonies, disabilitiy studies, difficult legacy, people with sensory impairments, socialismAbstract
Based on disability studies and a historical perspective, the article focuses on the rare memories of people with sensory impairments about how they survived socialist schooling, long-term social welfare institutions, and what their employment opportunities were. Their testimonies are reflected within the framework of socialist social policy and social protection for people with disabilities. Historicising the situation of people with sensory disabilities in the socialist period is challenging because the available written sources between 1950 and 1991 were mostly authored by experts involved in developing the institutions at that time, while the perspectives of people living in these institutions and their relatives are almost nonexistent. The voices of those who were critical of the medical segregation model of education for people with sensory impairments are absent. In individual interviews, people recalled the opportunities they had in terms of schooling, life in institutions, the attitudes of the staff towards them, and the constraints they had experienced regarding employment. They also reflected on the changes that had taken place following the change of the political system after 1991.
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