Between recognition and redistribution: disability, (human) rights, and struggles over welfare in Serbia

Abstract

This article analyses the discourse surrounding, implementation of, and struggles over the new disability policy in Serbia to show how its founding principles of human rights became partially co‐opted by neoliberal welfare restructuring. As a result, it sought to make disabled people not only equal but also economically ‘independent’ in the sense of relying on wage labour instead of welfare. Owing to its inadequate assumptions and instruments, the policy has largely failed to deliver on these objectives. Disabled people mobilized against neoliberalization by defending material welfare entitlements inherited from Yugoslav socialism. At the same time, they appropriated the register of human rights to demand a substantive political and civic equality. This points to the possibility of rights‐based projects that fuse rather than oppose the politics of recognition and redistribution.

Formal and informal support for Croatian and Serbian people with disabilities and their families: A scoping review

“…As Croatia is a European Union member, some laws and strategies from the European Union have also become part of the Croatian national legal system. Although the laws were adopted, they have been rarely enforced in practice (Čolić & Kaljača, 2014;Marković, 2014;Mikuš, 2018). Various support programs are often provided by NGOs whose funds come from different governmental and non-governmental grants, and they mainly terminate when the grant ends.…”

European social anthropology in 2018: an increasingly recursive public

“…Indeed, it is hard to deny that labour remains a pervasive reality for most humans – whether or not it is in their best interests. Mikuš () reminds us of this through his ethnography of welfare and disability in neoliberalising Serbia, analysing how pushing the disabled into wage labour is often treated as a policy end in itself.…”