Disability, human rights and the limits of humanitarianism

This powerful collection of transdiscipinary and transnational essays begins with a comprehensive introduction (pgs.1-14) which sketches out for its reader the significance of disabled people's protestations to austerity across the globe.By detailing activist efforts in the UK, Greece, Madrid, South Korea, Bolivia, and Afghanistan, as editors Gill and Schund-Vials situate disabled people's voices as central right from the beginning of this volume.In short, the volume both engages with and critiques "human rights" and humanitarianism.Without doubt, the book more than meets this aim, and it does so with a broad reach.For example, its well-organised chapters touch upon poverty; media; representation; humanitarian emergencies; protest and activism; education; HIV/AIDS; LBGTQQIA rights; violence; organ trafficking/markets; law and globalisation -to name just a few.An asset of the book is its global focus, emphasising that, as a disability studies community, we're moving away (albeit slowly) from a dominant Western disability studies and towards a more interesting and ethical terrain.Chapters focus on, for example, disability in humanitarian emergencies in India (Hiranandani, ch.6); HIV/AIDS and socio-economic rights in South Africa (Apon Strehlau, ch.11); and many chapters draw upon international and global discourses, economies, and markets in their analyses.Thus, I really enjoyed this collection, and would like to use this review to sketch out why.