Emergence and clashes in disabled service user organisations in South Korea

This paper explores the development and challenges of disabled service user participation within disabled people’s organisations in South Korea at a time of rapid evolution in welfare policy and practice. Since 1990s, disabled people’s organisations influenced by disability activisms, especially disability Dangsajajuwei, have increased significantly in South Korea. Those changes have increased disabled service user’s participation for service development, delivery, and meeting key needs such as disability rights, but many disabled people’s organisations have clashed with each other in order to take initiatives of service delivery for their own organisation. This paper concludes that Korean disabled people’s organisations are currently facing several challenges such as 1) defining disabled people’s organisation via Dangsajajuwei, 2) creating exclusive and selective authoritarian user groups among disabled people 3) losing a collective disabled service user's voice, 4) political and service system restraints of disabled service user participation, that are major threats towards the development of service user participation.