Alicia Yon

Project Description

This thesis is built around the help-seeking experiences of women with disabilities facing violence in peri-urban Australia; their socio-spatial barriers to mainstream social services; and how an integrated policy approach, including the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), could improve their access to those services. It invokes several human rights-based theoretical imperatives that support the argument that all humans, irrespective of their identity, are entitled to certain inalienable rights that enable them to participate fully in everyday life. These include the ‘right to the city’ (Lefebvre, 1996/1968), ‘intersectionality’ (Crenshaw, 1989) and ‘just diversity’ (Fincher & Iveson, 2008) to conceptualise an integrated policy framework to address the interlocking inequalities of gender and disability as compounded by violence and locational disadvantage. The narrative unfolds through an examination of one of the NDIS trial sites (Barwon) in a peri-urban setting in the State of Victoria, Australia. It specifically explores how the NDIS's reliance on its service interface and partnerships can drive an integrated approach to the design and delivery of violence response services.

Supervisors

Associate Professor Anna Hurlimann, Melbourne School of Design
Professor Cathy Vaughan, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health