Paper short abstract:

Social care support for intellectually disabled adults living in England is directed by statute aiming to enable people with freedom of choice and protection from harm. Through ethnographic exploration into support settings I hope to explore the tensions that exist between these two imperatives

Paper long abstract:

At what point, if at all, should a person with intellectual disability be prevented from making unwise decisions, and how much is this prevention a violation of their liberty or simply legitimate coercion with a view to keeping them safe? These questions, and the tension that sits at the heart of them, are the focus of my presentation. The tension emerges out of two central imperatives that have come to define contemporary social care support - individual autonomy and protection. Founded in the political philosophy of liberalism, which has defined the means by which a person achieves the 'good life', these imperatives became inculcated into social care support following WW2 and the recognition of societal responsibility to both care for and empower it's most vulnerable. Within mainstream social care this has established a politicisation of liberal practices that are realised through enabling people with a right to life in the community and to make choices independently.

Though there is acknowledgement of the inherent tension in the liberal notion of freedom - the need to balance choice with a responsibility to society - the law determines that this tension can be positively dissipated, empowering people with political and social control over their lives. Yet, within policy and everyday practice there is no real grappling with fact that individuals with an intellectual disability have varying levels of limited capacity for reason and reflection, and so determining whether they are subject to legitimate or illegitimate coercion is decidedly hazy.