☐This study is an exploratory work to analyze the issue of “labor” of people with disabilities through the case of “rights-based job in the public sector,” keeping in mind the orientation toward a “deinstitutionalized” society.
❍Work and employment policies for people with disabilities have long been addressed, but have recently become even more important with the rise of the deinstitutionalization agenda.
❍With criticism that the existing discussions have been limited to people with “mild” disabilities, the meaning of “labor” in the lives of people leaving institutions has emerged as another issue to be addressed.
❍Under these circumstances, the “rights-based public work” experiment, which has been conducted as a pilot project in Seoul since 2020, is considered a noteworthy experimental case.
❍This study seeks to identify the nature of this project from the perspective of the parties involved and finds its implications.
☐Using a research method called “photovoice,” this study intends to reveal the experience and thoughts of people with disabilities who participated in the rights-based public work project.
❍Photovoice is a method of participatory action research that emphasizes the agency of research participants and attempts to reveal the experience and thoughts of people in the context where it is physically or socio-culturally difficult to communicate verbally or to have a voice.
❍Given that many of the people involved in the rights-based public work project are people with developmental disabilities, which makes it difficult for them to communicate in the usual ways, the “voice in pictures” method was adopted.
☐The best part of a rights-based public work is just “going to work” itself, while the worst part is “having to do things they do not want to or cannot do.”
❍Participants in the study responded that they liked just “going to work itself,” “belonging to a company,” “having a variety of experiences and dreams,” “feeling like a member of society,” “coworkers,” and “freedom.”
❍Research participants cited “tight fit work schedule,” “long commutes,” “manager’s overload,” “war-like workplace,” and “unflattering social stigma” as difficulties.
❍What they wonder about a rights-based public job was “whether they can keep working” and what they wish for was that “they want to keep working.”
❍Other questions of the participants in the study include whether they would be able to continue working and whether they would be able to work more hours.
❍The participants expressed their desire to keep working and to experience diverse jobs so that they can do what they want to do.
☐Their experiences and thoughts make us rethink the meaning of “work” and recognize the limitations of employment policy for people with disabilities.
❍The meaning of “work” as expressed by the participants in photos can be summarized as “doors,” “paths,” and “coworkers,” which leads to the metaphor of “relationships.”
❍These metaphors ask us to question the meaning of “work” and reveal the limitations of today’s employment policy for people with disabilities
❍Rights-based public work may be suspended at any time in that it is being woking in the form of a “project.”
❍The implications of this attempt to connect “people with severe disability” and “labor” need to be explored more deeply.
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