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The principal aim of this COVID-19 Blog series is to inspire and support the international community to identify, prioritise and respond to the needs of the most vulnerable individuals and nations as part of both the immediate humanitarian response and long-term recovery planning

Blogs include:

• Recommendations for a disability-inclusive response to COVID-19 (Print and Audio)
• Why people with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 (Print and Audio)

This article analyses the claims of contemporary disability rights activists mobilising in a context where de facto second- class citizenship co-exists with legal and political declarations about the rights of disabled people. As an empirical case, it focuses on the blog ‘Full Participation.Now’, which was initiated by disability rights activists in Sweden. Drawing upon citizenship research, the article points to the tensions and dilemmas featuring the bloggers’ demand for participation and equality, as well as the challenges relative to their struggle. Although the bloggers formulate contrasting arguments, the article highlights that the activists share a common aspiration for ‘full citizenship’.

The importance of online communities for parents of people with disabilities has been discussed by many scholars in the fields of Digital and Disability Studies, showing, for instance, the importance of social support and the formation of social ties. In order to contribute to this scholarship, this paper explores how collective identity models are built and circulated by parents of autistic people in one of the biggest Brazilian online communities about the subject, ‘Sou autista… conheça o meu mundo’ (I am autistic…get to know my world). The results were obtained through a digital ethnography, based on participant observation and an exchange of information with the members of the community studied. Based on the data collected, the study concludes that the collective identity models that circulate in this community can be grouped into legitimising, resistant, and project identities, as postulated by Castells (2010). The different views reflect how parents see autism and represent the ways it is treated in Brazilian society.

Disability and the Global South, 2018 Vol.5, No. 1

Presented by actress and comedian Sally Phillips, A World Without Down’s Syndrome has brought important ethical debates regarding prenatal screening into the public domain. By talking to people with Down’s syndrome, family members, and professionals, Sally has presented a nuanced and thorough examination of the type of world we are living in. Following the documentary, Twitter users have continued to engage with debates and have created a resilient platform for challenging public attitudes. This paper explores the ways in which Twitter hashtags have provided a space for such important and long overdue conversations. While it would not be possible to provide a full overview of the topical conversations that the two hashtags have provoked, I aim to focus on some of the most prominent topics. The following, then, will explore the potential of alternative narratives that resist, and disrupt, normative notions of the human using the hashtags #worldwithoutdowns and #justaboutcoping.

The representational history of disabled people can largely be characterized as one of being put on display or hidden away. Self-representations have been a powerful part of the disability rights and culture movement, but recently scholars have analysed the ways in which these run the risk of creating a ‘single story’that centres the experiences of white, western, physically disabled men. Here we introduce and theorize with Project Re•Vision, our arts-based research project that resists this singularity by creating and centring, without normalizing, repre- sentations that have previously been relegated to the margins. We draw from body becoming and new materialist theory to explore the dynamic ways in which positionality illuminates bodies of difference and open into a discussion about what is at stake when these stories are let loose into the world.

This report presents the results of a research study assessing the impact of stigma and other social influences on applying for benefits in the UK

In 2007, a Norwegian theatre director Morten Traavik arrived in Cambodia to stage a beauty pageant, with funding from the government of Norway, for girls and women who had lost limbs in landmine explosions. This opinion article analyses the project which "continues to raise questions about what it means for a foreign project to offer 'freedom' and 'opportunity' to women with disabilities in Cambodia and stoke debates about the sexualisation of women with disabilities from the global South"

Purpose: This quasi-experimental field study examines the prosocial influences of a children’s entertainment-education television programme, Khushi Ko Sansar, on children’s beliefs and intended behaviour towards people with disabilities in Nepal.

Method: Pre-test and post-test survey data were gathered from 357 Nepali children from nine communities that took part in the study. The children were shown two television episodes in which the star of the programmes, a dog named Khush, befriends and visits people with disabilities.

Results: Post-test results show that children developed strong identification with Khush and adopted his prosocial beliefs and behaviour towards people with disabilities.

Conclusions: The authors conclude that the entertainment-education television programme, Khushi Ko Sansar, provided a positive role model for children who encounter people with disabilities. Implications of these findings suggest that entertainment- education media can improve the treatment of people with disabilities and can promote beneficial health beliefs and practices.