Advocating for disability care: replacing individual vigilantism with better care for all

In a discussion piece for the Debates and Issues section of the International Journal of Care and Caring, Anna Kuznetsov examines the stories of three unpaid caregiversin Canada to illustrate why and how vigilantism is enacted and the toll that it takes.

Anna Kuznetsov is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. She is a Research Assistant for the Care Economies in Context project.

Citation

Kuznetsov, A. (2025). Advocating for disability care: replacing individual vigilantism with better care for all. International Journal of Care and Caring (published online ahead of print 2025). Retrieved Dec 8, 2025, from https://doi.org/10.1332/23978821Y2025D000000161

Excerpt

Last year, Professor Ito Peng and her team at the Centre for Global Social Policy (a research centre within the University of Toronto’s Department of Sociology) embarked on a project to interview Canadians providing unpaid care to individuals with disabilities. In total, the research team interviewed 42 unpaid caregivers. Their backgrounds and circumstances vary, but they share many of the same frustrations, particularly around accessing services and funding for their loved ones. In the following, I present the stories of three of those caregivers to illustrate why and how vigilantism is enacted and the toll that it takes. (Participant names have been changed to preserve their privacy.)