Limitele libertății de exprimare în mișcarea pentru drepturile persoanelor cu dizabilități din România
Leyla Safta-Zecheria, Gabriela Tănăsan, Gabor Petri
Descriere autor:
West University of Timișoara; Democracy Institute, Central European University
E-mail:
E-mail personal autor:
madalinaelena.20@yahoo.com
1-2
Rubrica:
Studii culturale
Acknowledgement: Cercetarea de față a fost finanțată printr-un grant al Open Society Univeristy Network, “Disability movements in Central and Eastern Europe’s backsliding democracies – Participation in policy‑making” condus de Gabor Petri. Cercetarea prezentată aici a fost desfășurată ca parte a studiului de caz despre România.
The limits of freedom of expression in the Romanian disability movement
Abstract: The article explores how advocates from the Romanian disability movement perceive the freedom they have in expressing political views and the impact they believe such expressions have on driving policy and service reforms. Building on in‑depth semi‑structured interviews with nine representatives of self‑advocacy and service provider organizations conducted in October – December 2022, we explore how they engaged in advocacy practices during the multiple recent juxtaposed ‘crises’: the Covid-19 pandemic, the rise in the cost-of-living crisis and recent war-induced displacement of persons from Ukraine. We show how despite not feeling limited in the positions that they can take up, representatives of disability movement organizations nevertheless pointed to the intricacies of access to funding and advocating for their rights: both on the one hand, from within funding and political structures that can appear as potentially limiting the freedom of speech or the access to relevant audiences, to the limitations induced by lack of funding pointing to the practical and even personal limitations. As such, the paper shows how both funding inclusion and exclusion can lead to both empowerment and marginalization of the disability movement in policy advocacy. Furthermore, the paper explores how these challenges could be overcome from the perspective of the disability movement, while also pointing to the particularities of the present juxtaposed crises shaping both the policy space and advocacy practices.
Keywords: disability movement, self-advocacy, advocacy, freedom of expression
Citation suggestion: Safta-Zecheria, Leyla, Gabriela Tănăsan, and Gabor Petri. “Limitele libertății de exprimare în mișcarea pentru drepturile persoanelor cu dizabilități din România”. Transilvania, no. 1-2 (2026): 50-63.
https://doi.org/10.51391/trva.2026.1-2.05.
Bibliography
Arnstein, Sherry R. 1969. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35 (4): 216–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944366908977225.
Aubrecht, Katie, Brittany Barber, Melanie Gaunt, Joanne Larade, Vicky Levack, Marie Earl, and Lori E. Weeks. 2021. “Empowering Younger Residents Living in Long-Term Care Homes as Co-researchers.” Disability & Society 36 (10): 1712–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2021.1976112.
Baár, Monika. 2015. “Disability and Civil Courage under State Socialism: The Scandal over the Hungarian Guide-Dog School.” Past & Present 227 (1): 179–203.
Bucur, Maria. Forthcoming. “Deafness in the Interwar Romanian Press: From ‘Abnormal’ Children to Celebrated Soccer Stars.” Slavic Review.
Chappell, Paul, Peter Rule, Mfana Dlamini, and Nompilo Nkala. 2014. “Troubling Power Dynamics: Youth with Disabilities as Co-researchers in Sexuality Research in South Africa.” Childhood 21 (3): 385–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568214525427.
Cianetti, Licia, James Dawson, and Seán Hanley. 2020. “Rethinking ‘Democratic Backsliding’ in Central and Eastern Europe: Looking beyond Hungary and Poland.” In Rethinking Democratic Backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Licia Cianetti, James Dawson, and Seán Hanley, 1–14. London: Routledge.
Cistelecan, Alex, Costi Rogozanu, Adina Marincea, Adrian Grama, Elena Trifan, Stefan Baghiu, Alexandra Mercescu, and Cosmin Cercel. 2025. “The Global Polycrisis and the Romanian Elections of 2024.” Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 33 (1): 167–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/257 39638.2025.2482389.
Dimitrova, Ina, Mitko Nikolov, Teo Mladenov, and Gabor Petri. 2024. “Political Representation and the Human Rights Model of Disability.” Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research 26 (1): 393–409. https://doi. org/10.16993/sjdr.1052.
European Network of (ex)Users and Survivors of Psychiatry. 2025. “Who We Are.” https://enusp.org/ who-we-are/.
Grigoraș, Vlad, Manuel Salazar, Cristina I. Vladu, and Cosmin Briciu, eds. 2021. Diagnosis of the Situation of Persons with Disabilities in Romania. https://anpd.gov.ro/web/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/ Diagnosis-of-the-situation-of-persons-with-disabilities-in-Romania-Summary.pdf.
Happell, Brenda, Sarah Gordon, Julie Sharrock, Aine O’Donovan, and Terri Warner. 2022. “‘What’s She Doing Here?’ Overcoming Barriers to the Implementation of Expert by Experience Positions in Academia.” Australian Occupational Therapy Journal 69 (6): 689–702. https://doi.org/10.1111/1440- 1630.12832.
Hewitt, Olivia, Peter E. Langdon, Katherine Tapp, and Michael Larkin. 2023. “A Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis of Inclusive Health and Social Care Research with People with Intellectual Disabilities: How Are Co-researchers Involved and What Are Their Experiences?” Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities 36 (4): 681–701. https://doi.org/10.1111/jar.13100.
Labanino, Rafael Pablo, and Michael Dobbins. 2023. “Democratic Backsliding and Organized Interests in Central and Eastern Europe: An Introduction.” Politics and Governance 11 (1): 1–4. https://doi. org/10.17645/pag.v11i1.6532.
Liddiard, Kirsty, Katherine Runswick-Cole, Dan Goodley, Sally Whitney, Emma Vogelmann, and Lucy Watts, MBE. 2018. “‘I Was Excited by the Idea of a Project That Focuses on Those Unasked Questions’: Co-producing Disability Research with Disabled Young People.” Children & Society 33 (2): 154–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12308.
Mladenov, Teo. 2017. Disability and Postsocialism. London: Routledge.
Mladenov, Teo, and Gabor Petri. 2020. “Critique of Deinstitutionalisation in Postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe.” Disability & Society 35 (8): 1203–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2019.16 80341.
Oliver, Mike. 1990. The Politics of Disablement: A Sociological Approach. London: Macmillan Education UK.
Oliver, Mike. 2013. “The Social Model of Disability: Thirty Years On.” Disability & Society 28 (7): 1024–26.
Pelka, Fred. 2012. What We Have Done: An Oral History of the Disability Rights Movement. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Petri, Gabor. 2025. “‘Who Has Been Denied Equality and Why?’ Disability Movements in Changing and Eroding Democracies of Central and Eastern Europe.” DI Working Paper. Budapest: Democracy Institute, Central European University. https://democracyinstitute.ceu.edu/articles/gabor-petri- WP%202025_28.
Petri, Gabor, and Erika Hruskó. 2024. “Can Disability Rights Flourish in Backsliding Democracies? The Case of Hungary.” Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research 26 (1): 349–65. https://doi. org/10.16993/sjdr.1053.
Petri, Gabor, Julie Beadle-Brown, and Jill Bradshaw. 2021. “‘Even a Self-Advocate Needs to Buy Milk’: Economic Barriers to Self-Advocacy in the Autism and Intellectual Disability Movement.” Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research 23 (1): 180–91. https://doi.org/10.16993/sjdr.738.
Phillips, Sarah D. 2009. “‘There Are No Invalids in the USSR!’ A Missing Soviet Chapter in the New Disability History.” Disability Studies Quarterly 29 (3).
Roggeband, Conny, and Andrea Krizsán. 2021. “The Selective Closure of Civic Space.” Global Policy 12 (S1): 23–33. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12973.
Sabatello, Maya. 2014. “A Short History of the International Disability Rights Movement.” In Human Rights and Disability Advocacy, edited by Maya Sabatello and Marianne Schulze, 13–24. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Safta-Zecheria, Leyla. 2018. Away towards the Asylum. PhD diss., Central European University.
Safta-Zecheria, Leyla. Forthcoming. Fragmented Biopolitical Hierarchies in Everyday Life. Manuscript.
Safta-Zecheria, Leyla, Gabriela Tănăsan, and Gabor Petri. 2024. “Between a Shrinking and a Shifting Space: The Symbolic Inclusion of the Disability Movement in Policy-Making in Romania.” Revista de Asistență Socială / Social Work Review 1: 153–65.
Safta-Zecheria, Leyla, L. M. Trancă, A. M. Jurca, C. V. Borca, and T. A. Lazăr. 2024. “Inclusive Research Strategies for Conducting Hybrid Photovoice with University Students with Visual and Other Disabilities.” In SAGE Research Methods: Diversifying and Decolonizing Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Schmüser, Pia. 2021. “‘We as Parents Must Be Helped’: State–Parent Interactions on Care Facilities for Children with ‘Mental Disabilities’ in the GDR.” In Re/Imaginations of Disability in State Socialism: Visions, Promises, Frustrations, edited by Kateřina Kolářová and Martina Winkler, 215–57. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag.
Shakespeare, Tom. 2006. “The Social Model of Disability.” In The Disability Studies Reader, 2nd ed., edited by Lennard J. Davis, 197–204. New York: Routledge.
Shaw, Claire L. 2017. Deaf in the USSR: Marginality, Community, and Soviet Identity, 1917–1991. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501713798.
Šiška, Jan, and Julie Beadle-Brown. 2023. “Progress on Deinstitutionalisation and the Development of Community Living for Persons with Disabilities in Europe: Are We Nearly There?” Disability & Society 38 (8): 1476–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2022.2071676.
Smith-Carrier, Tracy, and Rana Van Tuyl. 2024. “The Merits and Pitfalls of Participatory Action Research: Navigating Tokenism and Inclusion with Lived Experience Members.” International Review of Public Policy 6 (1): 46–62. https://doi.org/10.4000/11whj.
Trancă, Loredana M., Leyla Safta-Zecheria, Claudia V. Borca, Theofil A. Lazăr, and Andra M. Jurca. 2024. “Proposals for an Inclusive Post-Pandemic Hybrid University.” Revista de Asistență Socială / Social Work Review 23 (1): 133–51.
Vanhala, Lisa. 2015. “The Diffusion of Disability Rights in Europe.” Human Rights Quarterly 37 (4): 831– 53. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24519118.

