ABSTRACT
Background
This paper reports on a participatory project on the social history of learning disability in resonance with current sociocultural discourses with people with learning disabilities, who have commissioned this work as their own original research.
Methods
We conducted a series of focus groups aligned to when the Eisteddfod had revisited the locale as a sociohistorical touchstone. We worked collectively to discuss and thematically analyse the inferred and documented lived experiences of people with learning disabilities at each of these snapshots in time and compared them with the lived experiences of our researchers today.
Findings
Past experiences of people with learning disabilities continue to resonate with their modern-day counterparts. These include the persistence of the institution in changing forms, marginalisation, segregation and dehumanisation.
Conclusions
The institution persists covertly as staffed residential schemes and overtly as long-stay low-security hospitals. Choice continues to be constrained by funding and staffing logistics, and work remains to be done if home is really to be home.