Intersectionality, Symbolic Representation and Disabled Politicians

• In Event: Pushing Barriers: The Place of Disability in Politics and Political Science Mini-Conference: Disabled Political Candidates: Navigating Identity, Messaging & Voter Response

Abstract

How to increase the number of disabled politicians is a topic that has in recent years attracted attention from scholars, as well as from those active within electoral politics and disability rights movements. Given this is a relatively new area of concern, there has perhaps been a tendency to focus on disabled people in toto, with relatively little attention paid to differences amongst and between disabled people. When difference is addressed, this tends to be in relation to difference of impairment type, rather than in relation to other structural forms of oppression such as gender, race, and class. Of course, those writing on disability more broadly readily acknowledge that disabled people do not constitute a homogenous group – indeed the links to and with feminist and critical race studies have been important in the development of much theorising in relation to disability and politics. However, there has been to date less attention paid to how intersectionality might shape disabled people’s experiences of, and approaches towards, the political recruitment and political representational processes. At the same time there has also been less attention paid to the symbolic dimension of representation as it relates to disabled people, and in particular the ways in which representatives are presented, and present themselves, to the wider public. Drawing upon Black feminist theory, and the burgeoning literature examining intersectionality and political representation, this paper proposes to think intersectionally about the relationship between disability and political representation. The research draws upon a case study analysis of the UK in order to examine the ways in which the media represents disabled politicians, and how disabled politicians themselves navigate their identities, through analysis of speeches, interviews and social media engagement. The research contributes to the growing literature on disability and political representation and the importance of ensuring disabled people are present within our legislatures, and more broadly speaks to the wider necessity of thinking intersectionally about disabled people and about disability and politics

Author

• Elizabeth J. Evans, Goldsmiths, University of London