Broken: Institutions, Families, and the Construction of Intellectual Disability

After 133 years of operation, the 2009 closure of Ontario's government-run institutions for people with intellectual disabilities has allowed accounts of those affected to emerge. Madeline Burghardt draws from narratives of institutional survivors, their siblings, and their parents to examine the far-reaching consequences of institutionalization due to intellectual difference.

Beginning with a thorough history of the rise of institutions as a system to manage difference, Broken provides an o...