Accidental activists: Mothers, organization and disability.
Item
-
Title
-
Accidental activists: Mothers, organization and disability.
-
Identifier
-
AAI3213157
-
identifier
-
3213157
-
Creator
-
Panitch, Melanie R.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Mimi Abramovitz
-
Date
-
2006
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Social Work | Sociology, Public and Social Welfare | Women's Studies | Political Science, General
-
Abstract
-
This study explored how and why mothers with disabled children became activists, how their various encounters with social, health and educational services integrated with broader struggles for social justice and human rights, how this contributed to broadening their vision for their children's futures, and what they did with this new consciousness. The research examined the changing role of women in the Canadian Association for Community Living (CACL). CACL is an organization that was founded largely by women (in 1958), and over the years has been led by a number of key activist mothers. Right from the beginning it has been women whose advocacy for services for their children with disabilities has brought them into a broader relationship to the state.;Leading campaigns to close institutions and secure human rights, they learned to mother as activists, struggling in their homes and communities against the debilitating and demoralizing effects of exclusion. But for the most part they came to their activism "accidentally", out of an event about which they had little choice, and certainly little foreknowledge. The research explores what "getting active" meant to these women who did what they did out of a sense of "gendered obligation" (Abramovitz, 1999).;The point of entry for this study began in "the everyday world" (Smith, 1987) of activist mothers with disabled children. The narratives of individual mothers themselves were a very important data source. Organizational archival documents and records of the Canadian Association from 1958-98 made the oral history aspects of this study viable.;Activist mothers recognized the importance of becoming advocates for change beyond their own families and they contributed to building an organization to place their issues on a more public scale. Yet the organization they founded has not been one that has necessarily recognized and profiled women's contribution or been thought of in gendered terms. This study contributes to the scholarship on women's activism and provides an opportunity to acknowledge the activist mothers for the contribution, courage and ability they devoted to their campaign for social justice.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
D.S.W.
