Temporalities and spaces of disability social (in)security : Australia and the UK compared

In this chapter we focus upon developments in social security policy for disabled people in Australia and the UK with the intensification of neoliberalism as policy hegemony in both countries. Our focus is primarily (but not exclusively) upon income replacement benefits – Disability Support Pension (DSP) in Australia and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in the UK – for working age disabled people. In line with other authors within this volume, such as Claire Edwards (see Chapter 2 ), we conceptualise spaces of social (in)security as spaces of social regulation where disabled bodies are regulated to establish, maintain and reproduce social normative relations of power. Thus, our analysis is focused within the space of social security relations and the techniques of governance drawn upon by neoliberal nation states to make and remake impaired bodies into a range of categories that will either grant or deny them access to disability benefits. Additionally, as a comparative analysis, we focus upon the nuanced and differentiated practices that have emerged at the local scale to regulate impaired bodies in response to broader global neoliberal political economic concerns (cf. Harvey 2005 )