BEAUTIFUL LIVES: How We Got Learning Disabilities So Wrong

I am Francesca Bernardi (PhD, FRSA) founding chair of the Antonio Gramsci Society UK. I created the society imagining a space for thought, reflection, activity and reciprocal cultural and civic knowledge exchange, not bound by academic borders or titles, elitism or impenetrable languages, and inspired by Gramsci’s notion of the organic intellectuals and their role and potential in society. My own engagement with Gramscian thought takes many forms, from thinking, writing, advocacy and research, to a conscious engagement with the choice of language in my work and civic participation. I am particularly interested in the humanity of Antonio Gramsci within his words and the physicality of his being; a man whose commitment to civil society was unerring in spite of being crippled by physical pain as well as physical entrapment in the years of his incarceration. This perspective informs my approach to research with disabled individuals and impoverished and marginal communities.