‘We're trying to get out of here, that's what we're doing’: A Bourdieusian examination of ‘choice’ in the National Disability Insurance Scheme

The notion of choice underpinning Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has its origin in neoliberal assumptions about the inherent value of market choice in human services reform and in the disability movement's advocacy for the right to self‐determination. Little is known about how people in institutional settings experience choice in the NDIS context. Based on a critical ethnographic study, this article explores the choices made by 12 people with psychosocial disability living in two Victorian supported residential services (SRS). The study found that despite the goal of most participants being to move into independent accommodation, 2 years after the start of the roll‐out of the NDIS, most participants were still living in SRS. Adopting a Bourdieusian conceptual framework, we show that the choices participants made were constrained by the institutional field in which they were living, their low capitals, and their relative powerlessness. This novel application of the concepts of field, habitus, and capitals in the NDIS context has implications for debates about the impact of marketisation and personalisation on individuals with limited agency. The findings have implications for policy and practice in other institutional settings and jurisdictions where public service delivery is framed around the notion of choice.Points for practitioners This research shows that a key choice for residents with psychosocial disability living in SRS was to move into independent housing. However, choice over their housing goals was constrained by living in an institutional setting and their relative powerlessness. Residents in these settings and NDIS participants living in other segregated institutional settings will need independent housing and living navigators if they are to find pathways into independent housing.