Disability, Human Rights and the Limits of Humanitarianism

Michael Gill is faculty member in women's, gender and sexuality studies at Grinnell College, USA. Cathy Schlund-Vials is Associate Professor in English and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut in the USA.

• Introduction, Michael Gill, Cathy J. Schlund-Vials; Chapter 1 The Promise of Human Rights for Disabled People and the Reality of Neoliberalism, Mark Sherry; Chapter 2 The New Humanitarianism, Maria Berghs; Chapter 3 Media, Disability, and Human Rights, Armineh Soorenian; Chapter 4 Volunteering as Tribute, Anna Mae Duane; Chapter 5 Structural and Cultural Rights in Australian Disability Employment Policy, Sarah Parker Harris, Randall Owen, Karen R. Fisher; Chapter 6 Disability in Humanitarian Emergencies in India, Vanmala Hiranandani; Chapter 7 Monitoring Disability, Tanya Titchkosky; Chapter 8 The Specter of Vulnerability and Disabled Bodies in Protest, Eunjung Kim; Chapter 9 Persons with Disabilities in International Humanitarian Law – Paternalism, Protectionism or Rights?, Janet E. Lord; Chapter 10 United Nations Policy and the Intersex Community, Ethan Levine; Chapter 11 HIV/AIDS, Disability and Socio-Economic Rights in South Africa, Lydia Apon Strehlau; Chapter 12 The Overrepresentation of Black Children in Special Education and the Human Right to Education, Jennifer Bronson; Chapter 13 “Becoming Disabled”, Nirmala Erevelles;

'... these essays focus on the suffering and pathos of the disability experience. ... Recommended.' Choice ’The essays in this excellent book are adept at showing how the victimization of the disabled is produced and legitimated through constructions of the disabled body as both threat and moral obligation. These writers consistently challenge the clichés that dominate thinking about disability by negotiating the shoals of both social realism and posthumanist triumphalism in ways that will open up these issues for a wide range of scholars and students.’ Terry Rowden, The City University of New York, USA 'I highly recommend this collection. Disability, Human Rights and the Limits of Humanitarianism’s chapters offer breadth and depth, engaging with ’disability’ and ’human rights’ in fresh and, often, provocative ways. ... the collection makes space for critical debate of what it means to have access to ’rights’ as currently constructed in neoliberal capitalist economies. Above this, I enjoyed every single chapter - what more could one want from a book than that?' Disability & Society