Anais van Ertvelde is a PhD student at the Institute for History.

More information about Anais van Ertvelde

Research

My PhD project intends to test the hypothesis that the IYDP or International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) and the subsequent IDDP or International Decade of Disabled Persons (1982-1993) brought forth a paradigm shift in the way government agencies on the international and national level, disability organisations and people with disabilities themselves conceive of and deal with disability. A shift that is intricately linked to broader social, economical and political evolutions in the last quarter of the 20th century such as increasing global interactions, the evolving cold war context and the advance of neoliberalism. In order to demonstrate this I will make use of an innovative cross-Iron Curtain analysis and focus on three local case studies and their global entanglements: Belgium, Poland, and the US. Countries whose ideologies and practices reflect different degrees of state provisions and state influence. My PhD is part of the Rethinking Disability research project.

Curriculum vitae

After completing a BA in history and political science, I obtained an MA in History from the University of Ghent. I graduated with a dissertation on the evolution of the women's movement which was awarded the Johanna Naber price for the best thesis in the area of gender history in Belgium and the Netherlands. Subsequently I obtained an MA in gender studies from Utrecht University cum laude. My fields of interest are history of the body, history of social movements, heritage and historical representations, gender history and disability history.

Publications

Activities