articles
Research Workshop on Conditions of Autonomy – Legal, Political and Philosophical Perspectives
A one-day Research Workshop (20 May 2022), organized by the Centre for Political Thought, the School of Law and the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health (University of Exeter).
The Research Workshop investigated ideas of autonomy, power and domination in institutions and the community, exploring the conditions for autonomous agency. In particular it looked at vulnerable and disadvantaged subjects. Capacity for autonomous agency is an important question in discussions of social justice and the treatment of persons with dignity. It has been at the centre of feminist debates, and it poses practical and theoretical difficulties in cases involving vulnerable people such as people with disabilities and children. It is a topic that cuts across philosophical, political and legal studies, intersecting other conceptual issues, such as liberty, power, domination, and mental capacity.
In one of the section of the Workshop we discussed Dr Lucy Series’s book on ‘The Deprivation of Liberty in the Shadows of the Institution’. Listen here for an overview of her practical experience in care work that inspired her book, and her view of how liberty may be realised for persons legally classified as mentally or physically disabled.
Date: 12 December 2022