Co-published article by ISS Alumni Suharto Suharto
ISS alumn Suharto Suharto (HDS 2010) has co-published an article with colleagues Pim Kuipers and Pat Dorsett entitled “Disability terminology and the emergence of ‘diffability’ in Indonesia” in the A-rated Journal, Disability and Society.
In the article the authors discuss the grassroots term difabel to allude to the conceptualisation of ‘differently able’. The persistence of the grassroots in defending the term difabel, while in the UNCRPD ratification era the elites have turned to using disabilitas, alerts us to the power of labels and the role they play.
The article provides a critique of the issue of language and the labelling of people with impairments and how it influences the paradigm of policy and service responses, and thereby the future role of differently able people.