Participation of Persons in Disabling Situation in Local Governance: How to Measure the Impact of Inclusive Local Development Strategies? A Review of Relevant Concepts
In response to inadequate social and physical environments which play a large role in the disability creation process, local groups of people in disabling situation throughout the world have put forth projects aimed at rendering their communities more inclusive. They did so through the active participation of people with disabilities in local governance processes and decision taking. Supporting the need to measure and compare the impact of those strategies, this article is the result of a synthesis of conceptual work. It was originally prepared for an international research program sponsored by the International Foundation of Applied Disability Research in its partnership with the Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche en réadaptation et integration sociale (CIRRIS), the Centre international d’études pour le développement local (CIEDEL), Vida Brasil and Handicap International (HI). It aimed at assessing Inclusive local development initiatives regarding disability in different sites. Comprising sites in Madagascar, Brazil, France and Canada, the individual projects address different issues in their own cultural setups. The overall project necessitated shared definitions of concepts which in return, would allow to make sense of the different local cultural and political realities without too much discursive distortion within their meanings and translation between sites. The presentation of these concepts in this article doesn’t provide set definitions, but offers a platform for discussions about the signification and usage of these concepts in real life contexts. The inter contextual conceptual encounter provides a possibility of dialogue in which each group learns from the others, their struggles, their strategies and their possibilities. This article contributes to the common understanding of local inclusive development realities within the project as well as an overview of some of the most common disability concepts used in grassroots groups.