The (contested) role of the academy in activist movements for legal capacity reform: A personal reflection
Flynn, Eilionóir
Flynn, Eilionóir
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Publication Date
2022-03-10
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book part
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Flynn, Eilionór. (2022). The (contested) role of the academy in activist movements for legal capacity reform: A personal reflection. In Mary Donnelly, Rosie Harding, & Ezgi Tascioglu (Eds.), Supporting legal capacity in socio-legal context (pp. 117-134). London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Abstract
Academics are often trained to maintain a critical distance between their research and the efforts of grassroots activists to achieve political, legal and social change. When I began my work in the field of disability rights, I felt that as an academic, my role would be to inform and equip activists who could use research evidence to ground arguments for change ‒ but that I would not, and should not, play a central role in the (often messy and fraught) politics of change myself. In part, my view on this was shaped by my awareness of the tensions between the disabled people’s movement and non-disabled academic researchers. However, as my work evolved, I found myself more and more directly engaged with policy-makers and legislators. This work was usually collaborative ‒ both with other researchers, and with civil society organisations, including, although to a lesser extent than would be desirable, disabled people’s organisations.
In this chapter I will reflect on my experiences with the development of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 in Ireland, through my engagement with a coalition of civil society organisations co-chaired by the Centre for Disability Law and Policy at National University of Ireland, Galway and Amnesty Ireland’s Mental Health Campaign. I will consider the challenges presented, the experiences of collaboration and efforts at consensus-building, and how these processes have shaped my own thinking and the further development of my academic work in this field.
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Bloomsbury Publishing
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International