Containment, Conformity: Families, Institutions, and the Limits of Imagination

Authors

  • Madeline Burghardt Department of Critical Disability Studies in the School of Health Policy and Management, Faculty of Health, York University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v5i1.249

Keywords:

Cold War, Institutionalization, Familial decision-making, Discourse, Historical ontology, Imagination

Abstract

In the decades immediately following World War II, commonly referred to as the Cold War, people with intellectual disabilities continued to be institutionalized despite growing public calls for civic and social rights for all peoples. This article examines the social, cultural, and political conditions of the Cold War era that contributed to the ongoing placement of children in Canadian government institutions, and explores the relationship between cultural and political discourse, familial decision-making, and the continued marginalization and segregation of people with intellectual disabilities. Using a Foucauldian approach, it also reflects on the ‘historical ontology’ of this phenomenon in order to better understand the limits of possibility as understood by families of this era. 

Author Biography

Madeline Burghardt, Department of Critical Disability Studies in the School of Health Policy and Management, Faculty of Health, York University

Madeline Burghardt received her PhD in Critical Disability Studies from York University in 2014. Her dissertation examined the impact of institutionalization on family relationships and understandings of disability. She is currently a part-time lecturer in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University and serves on the Executive Board of the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. Current research interests include governmentality and geographies of disability; structural and political underpinnings of oppression and marginality; and the socio-ethical- political construction of intellectual disability.

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How to Cite

Burghardt, M. (2016). Containment, Conformity: Families, Institutions, and the Limits of Imagination. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 5(1), 42–72. https://doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v5i1.249

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2016)

Section

Articles

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