Núcleo Disca

Disability and citizenship

Decolonial feminist analysis of personal assistance policies in EU member states

Pía Rodríguez-Garrido, Carolina Ferrante, Alberto Vásquez, Juan Pin-Morán, Nicolás Schongut y Michelle Lapierre Acevedo

Points of interest:

  • Personal assistance (PA) is defined as a human right for the independent life of persons with disabilities.
  • The traditional eurocentric frameworks of the PA are criticized, in which it is pointed out that the current development model is colonial, capacitative, heteropatriarcal and eurocentric.
  • The decolonial feminist Latin American contribution is used as a theoretical and political framework to confront and rethink the dominant models of care.
  • Although the PA is formally established in most EU member states, the article reveals that its implementation is very uneven. The analysis exposes how current AP agreements still reproduce knowledge hierarchies, directly affecting who defines needs, who decides, and what knowledges are considered legitimate.
  • The article makes visible the tensions and limits of Eurocentric policies, the decolonial feminist approach not only criticizes but also proposes community-based alternatives to PA that are relevant and applicable for both Latin America and Europe.

Notes:

  • The following summary was made by Núcleo Milenio DISCA, and was based exclusively on the publication. Therefore, it cannot be used for citations and references.
  • This article was originally published in English.

Rodríguez-Garrido, P., Ferrante, C., Vásquez, A., Pino-Morán, J., Schongut, N., & Lapierre Acevedo, M. (2026). Decolonial feminist analysis of personal assistance policies in EU member states. Journal of Gender Studies, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2026.2618158

https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2026.2618158