Vida Independente para pessoas com deficiência: do individualismo à autodeterminação

The Independent Living Movement for Disabled has over the past five decades reconfigured social policies in the area of disability in different countries of the Western world. This movement combines, without contradiction, some of the values that structure modern individualism and liberal conceptions of autonomy and individual responsibility. This article makes an archaeology of this movement, in order, to situate the demand for Independent Living in the present agendas of the organizations of disabled people and of the Disabled People’s Movement. Hence, it reflects on how Independent Living for disabled people integrates and articulates values and conceptions dominant in western capitalist societies.