Disability Law in a Pandemic: The Temporal Folds of Medico-Legal Violence

Spivakovsky, C; Steele, L

Disability Law in a Pandemic: The Temporal Folds of Medico-Legal Violence

Spivakovsky, C Steele, L

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Publisher:: SAGE Publications
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Social and Legal Studies: an international journal, 2022, 31, (2), pp. 175-196
Issue Date:: 2022-04-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Spivakovsky, C
dc.contributor.author	Steele, L https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6944-7888
dc.date.accessioned	2022-11-23T23:19:44Z
dc.date.available	2022-11-23T23:19:44Z
dc.date.issued	2022-04-01
dc.identifier.citation	Social and Legal Studies: an international journal, 2022, 31, (2), pp. 175-196
dc.identifier.issn	0964-6639
dc.identifier.issn	1461-7390
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/163700
dc.description.abstract	Disabled people are subject to disability laws – such as guardianship, mental health and mental capacity legislation – which only apply to them, and which enable legal violence on the basis of disability (‘disability-specific lawful violence’). While public health laws during the COVID-19 pandemic enabled coercive interventions in the general population, disabled people have additionally been subject to the continued, and at times intensified, operation of disability laws and their lawful violence. In this article we engage with scholarship on law, temporality and disability to explore the amplification of disability-specific lawful violence during the pandemic. We show how this amplification has been made possible through the folding of longstanding assumptions about disabled people – as at risk of police contact; as vulnerable, unhealthy and contaminating – into the immediate crisis of the pandemic; ignoring structural drivers of oppression, and responsibilising disabled people for their circumstances and the violence they experience.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	SAGE Publications
dc.relation.ispartof	Social and Legal Studies: an international journal
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1177/09646639211022795
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.subject	1602 Criminology, 1608 Sociology, 1801 Law
dc.subject.classification	Criminology
dc.title	Disability Law in a Pandemic: The Temporal Folds of Medico-Legal Violence
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	31
utslib.for	1602 Criminology
utslib.for	1608 Sociology
utslib.for	1801 Law
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Law
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - HJ - Health Justice
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*
pubs.consider-herdc	true
dc.date.updated	2022-11-23T23:19:42Z
pubs.issue	2
pubs.publication-status	Published
pubs.volume	31
utslib.citation.issue	2

Abstract:

Disabled people are subject to disability laws – such as guardianship, mental health and mental capacity legislation – which only apply to them, and which enable legal violence on the basis of disability (‘disability-specific lawful violence’). While public health laws during the COVID-19 pandemic enabled coercive interventions in the general population, disabled people have additionally been subject to the continued, and at times intensified, operation of disability laws and their lawful violence. In this article we engage with scholarship on law, temporality and disability to explore the amplification of disability-specific lawful violence during the pandemic. We show how this amplification has been made possible through the folding of longstanding assumptions about disabled people – as at risk of police contact; as vulnerable, unhealthy and contaminating – into the immediate crisis of the pandemic; ignoring structural drivers of oppression, and responsibilising disabled people for their circumstances and the violence they experience.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/163700