“Rescue our children”: the discourses of campaigns in favor to reform residential care for disabled children in Russia
How to Cite
Shmidt V. “Rescue our children”: the discourses of campaigns in favor to reform residential care for disabled children in Russia. Interaction. Interview. Interpretation. 2016. Vol. 8. No. 12. P. 5-20.
Abstract
This text highlights the role of public debates in social media and civic journalism in the current reform of residential care for the children with disability. The debates often transformed into moral campaigns are explored in the context of mutually contesting discourses which either revise the approaches to disability or lead to tokenism because of reproducing the ideas inherentto Soviet special education. The article explores the compatibility of the Soviet defectological discourse and the ideological platform one of the earliest moral campaigns (2008–2009), around the case of the 8‑year girl who was transferred step by step from mainstream orphanage to the setting for children with multiple disorder of development. By recognizing in the activists’discourse defectological vision on the norm, professional assistance and the contrast of family placement with residential care, I investigate the limits of good moral panic in line with Cohen’s approach as inevitably reproducing the discourses relevant to the audience’s expectations but alongside simultaneously continuing to segregate the children with disability.Being aligned with public expectations, moral campaigns shape public opinion and policy around institutions for children with disability. Though civic journalism could not be led to disclosing simplified constructions and the simulacrum of citizen participation. The last part discusses the options for civic journalism in order to achieve the sustainable reproduction of relevant ideas within the projects towards providing the rights of children with disabilities. I put forward two different materials representing the genre of civic journalism and conclude that civic journalism maintains fully authentic vision of the issue and challenges deeply rooted ideas regarding norms and prescriptions typical of moral campaigns. Instead taking-for-granted suggestions civic journalismshares contextual knowledge and its own experience of participation. In contrast to moral campaigns with their inevitable symbolic participation the civic journalism practices co-participation in the life of children or those who experienced public care. By revising their falls in assistingto young people from institutions and debating various opinions about such assistance, those who practice civic journalism deconstruct the interactions between public and the entrepreneurs of moral campaigns — in favor of holding the intention to participate despite unsuccessful attempts.
Keywords:
residential care, moral campaigns, civic journalism, discourse of childhood, disability
References
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/07/03/neuchi/ (accessed 24.12.2016).
Il’enkov Je. V. (1984) Problema ideala v filosofii [The issue of ideal in Phylosophy]. Iskusstvo i kommunisticheskij ideal: Izbrannye stat’i po filosofii i jestetike [Art and communist ideal: selected papers on
Philosophy and Aesthetics], Moscow: Iskusstvo.
Kristina ishhet mamu [Krystina is looking for Mom] (2009). URL: http://devo4kakristina.ucoz.ru/ (accessed 24.12.2016).
Kristina-sirota ishhet roditelej! [Krystina who is an orphan is looking for parents!] (2009). URL: http://sos.storona.ru (accessed 24.12.2016).
Markov D. (2012a) 22. LiveJournal. 11 January. URL: http://dcim.livejournal.com/330534.html (accessed
12.2016).
Markov D. (2013) God III [The third year]. LiveJournal. 10 July. URL: http://dcim.livejournal.com/456108.html (accessed 24.12.2016).
Markov D. (2012b) Molodoj chelovek, u vas est’ 24 chasa, chtob pereodet’sja. [Young man, you have 24 hours for disguising]. LiveJournal. 24 January. URL: http://dcim.livejournal.com/334023.html (accessed 24.12.2016).
Markov D. (2010a) Polevoe sozrevanie [Field-work maturation]. Esquire. 11 November. URL: http://esquire.ru/fedkovo-kids (accessed 24.12.2016).
Markov D. (2012c) Pravda [Truth]. LiveJournal. 17 January. URL: http://dcim.livejournal.com/332452.html (accessed 24.12.2016).
Markov D. (2011) Puti [Pathways]. LiveJournal. 18 August. URL: http://dcim.livejournal.com/301511.html (accessed 24.12.2016).
Markov D. (2010b) Rasskaz besprizornika [Self-story of abandoned]. BBC. 31 August. URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/russian/2010/08/ (accessed 24.12.2016).
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Markov D. (2012e) Sportivnoe [Sportive]. LiveJournal. 20 October. URL: http://dcim.livejournal.com/tag/howard (accessed 24.12.2016).
Mesherjakov A. I. (1970) Poznanie mira bez sluha i zrenija [Learning of world without hearing and seeing]. Priroda, no 1. URL: http://scepsis.net/library/id_960.html (accessed 24.12.2016).
Meshherjakov A. I. (1970) Slepogluhonemye deti. Razvitie psihiki v processe formirovanija povedenija [Blind deaf-mute children. The mental development within shaping their behaviour], Moscow: Pedagogika.
Orlova A. (2013) Diagnoz — Raznochinovka [Diagnosis — Raznochinovka]. Miloserdie.ru. 15 January. URL: http://www.miloserdie.ru/articles/diagnoz-raznochinovka (accessed 24.12.2016).
Petranovskaya L. (2009) Distsiplinarnaya psikhiatriya [Punitive psychiatry]. Regnum. 19 May. URL: http://www.regnum.ru/news/1164917.html (accessed 24.12.2016).
Rubinstein S. (1986) Psikhologiya umstvennogo otstalogo shkol’nika. [Psychology of mentally retarded student], Moscow: Prosveshchenie.
Sokoljanskij I. A. (1962) Podgotovka slepogluhonemogo podrostka k proizvodstvennomu trudu v uslovijah domashnego vospitanija [The preparation of blind deaf-mute children for manufacturing labor within
family upbringing]. Obuchenie i vospitanie slepogluhonemyh [Education and upbringing of blind deaf-mute children] (eds. I. A. Sokoljanskogo, A. I. Meshherjakova), Moscow: Izvestija APN RSFSR.
Serrikalieva Je., Sirotkin S., Suvorov A. (1978) Obretesh’ druzej [You will find friends]. Alma-Ata: Zhalyn.
Stepina N. (2009) Karatel’naya psikhiatriya v sirotskikh uchrezhdeniyakh — rezul’tat repressivnoi pedagogiki
[Punitive psychiatry in orphanages is the result of oppressive pedagogy]. Regnum. 16 May. URL: http://www.regnum.ru/news/1164276.html#ixzz2GZQTKTDS (accessed 24.12.2016).
Tulchinskaya T. (2009) Kak sistema sotsial’nogo prizreniya v Rossii lomaet sud’by detei [How the Russian welfare system breaks children’s destiny]. Regnum. 22 February. URL: http://www.regnum.ru/news/1128298.html (accessed 24.12.2016).
Goffman E. (1974) Frame analysis. An essay of organization of experience, Boston: Northeastern University
press.
Burman E. (1994) Deconstructing Developmental Psychology, London and New York: Routledge.
Cohen S. (2011) Whose side were we on? The undeclared politics of moral panic theory. Crime, Media, Culture, vol. 3, no 7, pр. 237–243.
Dandoy A. (2015) Towards a Bourdieusian frame of moral panic analysis: The history of a moral panic inside the field of humanitarian aid. Theoretical criminology, vol. 3, no 19, pр. 416–433.
Dufrasne M., Patriarche G. (2011) Applying genre theory to citizen participation in public policy making: Theoretical perspectives on participatory genres. Communication management Quarterly, no 21,
pр. 61–86.
Farocki H. (2004) Working on the Sight Lines. Film Culture in Transition (ed. T. Elsaesser), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
James A., Jenks Ch., Prout A. (1998) Theorizing childhood, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Walkerdine V. (2009) Developmental psychology and the study of childhood. Introduction to childhood studies (ed. M. Kehily), Buckingham: Open University Press, pр. 112–124.
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APA
Shmidt, V. (2016). “Rescue our children”: the discourses of campaigns in favor to reform residential care for disabled children in Russia. Interaction. Interview. Interpretation, 8(12), 5-20. Retrieved from https://inter-fnisc.ru/index.php/inter/article/view/4908
Section
Theoretical discourses and debates
