Vulnerable rights: disability, public action and social change.

Summary Access to public spaces for a person in a wheelchair may be enshrined in law, but where a ramp is lacking, this right remains a dead letter. The school may claim to be inclusive, but if it does not provide a blind student with the appropriate accommodations, it is not inclusive in practice. Over the years and through mobilization, a multitude of rights have been recognized for people with disabilities. How have they changed their daily lives? Based on biographical accounts collected from individuals with motor or visual disabilities, the author shows that the rights associated with disability, often imprecise in the texts, suffer from major implementation flaws. Yet, in the face of these vulnerable rights, individuals are active, critical and innovative. At school, in the workplace, with the administration or on public transport, they protest, negotiate, tinker and adapt their rights, to break with the second-class citizenship that is still assigned to them. [Editor's summary].