Event ID: 1422115
Event Started: 9/29/2009 11:00:00 PM
----------

Please stand by for realtime captions. 
>> If everyone could please remember and remind each other[Audio Cutting In/Out]. 
>> We will wait a couple of more minutes. 
>> Can everybody see the first slide? 
>> Samantha, press your F5 key. 
>> Did that help? 
>> Pat, are you ready to start? 
>> Just give me two more minutes. When the CD recorder is come up, and then you can start. 
>> Okay, I will stand by. 
>> My name is Christine Kelly I'm an executive board met with citizens of disabilities Ontario. I'm pleased to welcome to the final installment of the disabilities studies fall webinar series. [Audio Cutting In/Out] at the Ontario Institute of studies. [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. Her first publication will be coming at this summer. [Speaker Faint/Unclear] and on the to to think that that perceptions with people with disabilities. 
>> Thank you for that introduction and thank you for coming. I appreciate. 
>> To begin, by title slide as Christine mentioned, what's that, an opportunity to think about imagery and perception of disability. For tonight lecture, I will focus on concept of perception of disability and conception of disability through thinking about individual interaction spirit I am focusing and not on dialogue that comes up and manifest itself through disability rather than imagery, of the imagery is a piece of the double perception and conception. For the purposes of this webinar, I think focusing on dialogue would be more effective. 
>> My second slide is a little bit of who I am. Christine talked a lot about it. My name Samantha Walsh and I a Ph.D. student at Beauty. I also had been a disability rights activist for seven years. That is how I come to disability studies scholarship and where I ground a lot of work in my own personal matter as well as the experience of working towards disability rights. 
>> What is this lecture about? Thinking about a common sense perception of disability. What I am really hoping to bring out in this lecture is thinking about the social positioning of disability within contemporary society and why that is. Why is this lecture useful to you? This lecture will [Speaker Faint/Unclear] a public disconnect of people with disabilities and the living experience. As someone with a disability or as an ally type of someone with a disability, if you have encountered an awkward situation where someone said something that was a parent and you think we are when they come up with that? Who would say that? Things like approaching someone who is in a wheelchair and saying, it is nice to see you out or I didn't know they let people like you go to school. What this lecture is hopefully going to do is try and attack some of the social threads that would be towards some of those offhanded a direct comments and the cultural context. We are looking what environment and perceptions rows of these ideas. 
>> Why is this useful to the citizens with disabilities Ontario. I like this - I left the slide somewhat blank because I was hoping you would make selections of their own and find tools and meaning in it that are meaningful to you. I also see examining perceptions and social positioning as with this ability as something important to to activist work. It provides a context where rights may be and it also provides a different perspective or thinking about disability not necessarily as a medical individual experience but rather as a cultural thing and social entity. In doing activist work myself, I have done that to be an useful component, it to rethink my position about disability and take it out of a medical individual problem and contextualize it more as a social phenomenon that is produced through the adult environment and also social interaction. 
>> An example of this would be, the building at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education only has three bathrooms that are wheelchair accessible. Therefore, not being if to walk upstairs and navigate an average bathroom becomes a problem because there are only three. Disability is removed from something biological and individual and becomes an issue created by the structure of the infrastructure of society. 
>> Slide number five is getting more into the actual net and bolts of my lecture. What that? Who says that? Thinking about the social positioning of disability to the things people say and what people say and think the things they do? What will follow this slide is conversational examples of the disconnect between social and contemporary perceptions of disability with someone's actual living experience of being disabled. 
>> My three examples are, the first when I used from Rosemary Thompson is work, extraordinary bodies published in 2007. In this book she writes about a disabled woman's experience. She writes about how this woman's beauty is often a contradiction. She is often met with comments that are I think, well intentioned or being complementary as things like I didn't know someone so disabled could be so attractive. Or 80 is too bad your legs don't work because you are gorgeous. Things like that. In the first example you see a manifestation of a disconnect between Beauty, something positive and visibility existing in the same body. In this space, disabilities are perceived as something negative that detracts from Beauty. This is an interesting perception of disability because it puts disability into a negative context. And into a context for disability and beauty can't really exist in the same body. 
>> This is a manifestation of contemporary, understanding the perception of that disability. We think about how disability within the mainstream icons. We think about concepts like various telethons on TV for a disability is represented it and is something - and in need of charity. The see disability and movies for the disabled person is a monster or potentially disfigured. We see disabilities connected with instances of inconvenience of oppression. We don't react with hallmark's of disability as being something positive or beautiful or as not being something negative, but rather an alternative way of moving through the world or diversity when in the body. 
>> My second example is the example of a disabled man working for minimum wage is set to be lucky to have a job at all. This comes from a paper I wrote. I am thinking that it is meant to% disability and its social positioning with a Marxist lens or the review of employment. I am thinking about one would say to a disabled man you're lucky to have a job at all or why it would be understood issue should just be happy to be working? It is sort of the space where air capitalism and political economy and social structure, which values the replaceable interchangeable bodies. If I hire Tom, I can replace them with rich. Rich and Tom are similar and if I continue to perpetuate an understanding that I need a body like, and Sally was to work for me, then I had a justification to pay Sally less because her body is different than Tom's. It is looking at the structure where we privilege different types of bodies in different ways of moving through the world. In the statement that a disabled man is lucky to have a job at all, we are reaffirming the privileging of the able-bodied persons be perceived disabled body as being underprivileged, and perpetuating the myth that somehow the differently and bodied is therefore less. That is just another perspective of looking how disability be situated within the Common sense or contemporary perception. The third one I think is interesting. It is taken from a book published in 1999. It is called the two in one. Walking with [Speaker Faint/Unclear] and apply this. In this book, if you would be asked if you need help well confidently walking down the street if you are not visibly blind? In the book, it is described as [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. All of these social indicators of confidence of knowing where he is going and he is continuing asked if he needs help or if he is lost? The questions if he would still get these questions if he were not visibly blind what he is trying to do in this questioning of social positioning is unpacked the position that contemporary society [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. This is a sense that we privilege cited this as the only legitimate way of moving through the world and the most knowledgeable sensory experience. It is only through the construction of how we have organized the society that site becomes prevalent. 
>> If we think about it, using the example of traffic lights, it is important to be able to see because it is important to be able to see and decipher traffic lights. A standard traffic light doesn't usually make no waste. It is important to be able to see. Then to contextualize that, a traffic light that makes noise or have an audit indicator is often understood as an extra or something that the municipality did. It is not understood as the standard way in which a traffic light is taken up. The way I think about this as an example, let's say through UT, they build another building and build an amazing building but they don't put bathrooms for students. There are no bathrooms for students. The university's response is no one who designed the building is a student and no one who built the building is the student. We didn't even think about students none of us are students so we don't know if students go to the bathroom. Maybe next year when we get money we will put bathrooms in for students. Let's think about that in reality. [Speaker Faint/Unclear] I am pretty sure there would be a ridiculous uproar. UT is legitimately able to build buildings without putting in an accessible bathrooms or a bathroom that someone who was disabled would have access. 
>> The same way we put aside to the bodies and we legitimize the site experienced is the same way we legitimize the washrooms base for able-bodied people or people who move around through standing. It creates a question or lack of social imagination for how someone who is blind could move through the world without help. 
>> The next slide is what is that? That team continues to the next three slight. People's comments may be mistimed or rude but once the some sense [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. Again, this speaks to the privilege of sight and the construction of traffic lights or the privileges in the creation of bathrooms. We gain perceptions or assumptions about how other people exist in the world through our cultural experience and our environment. If you create a space where it is hard for someone who is disabled to navigate, we have a less clear picture of how they would show up there. In some cases, it allows them to [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. 
>> What does this mean? This is the slide to sort of bring together, that someone's ignorance may be more of a perception of a disability than that of their own [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. A beautiful disabled woman speaks to the perception that disabilities are perceived as negative. 
>> For a disabled met as being lucky he had the job speaks to the [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. There is a political economy [Audio Cutting In/Out] I have written on the slide for the example if I hired Tom who is white and able-bodied, I could replace them with Mike Laura Rich , I can then make a case of why I higher Sally, I can pay her less [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. I have at the bottom of the slide [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. Leonard Davis wrote an article featured in the disability steadies' reader which is published in 2002 and is by Joanne Bergen and Rosemary Thompson and Leonard Davis. He gives them more historical context realization to infrastructure which values the body. It traces it back to the onset of the indictment. [Speaker Faint/Unclear] the creation of stats and the normal curves. 
>> To refer back to my third example, a blind man walking and ask to the needs help despite not appear to be lost or disoriented speaks to social imagination, but cannot imagine functioning without sight. This is not because of individual interests, but because of the social favorite of sight as compared to the other senses. We do not create space for [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. To build on this example, this morning, I did another lecture on the same topic, the cultural perceptions and disabilities. I am moving to the social theory and is fantastic, I thought it was fantastic and then all of a sudden this group its upper hand. I am thinking it is a question. This is the second year an university student, she is socially performing all the things that would indicate to me that she is a learned student and she says, I know this is good to see weird, but the entire time you have been speaking, all I could think about is how did you get here? Several other students were like, I can't even imagine how someone who does not stand up could drive a car. Despite the cultural capital will the university since May it had [Speaker Faint/Unclear] and social capital is the value in relationships you have. Despite all of these resources and smart people to be university students, they couldn't fathom the concept of someone who used a wheelchair or is disabled being able to drive. They had no social imagination for what that could lookalike. It speaks to a lot about the representation within our cultural fabric. We don't produce hallmarks of people driving and moving a round and getting through the world. It speaks to the lack of social and imagination. Privileging legs to push the gas pedal rather than thinking other ways a gas pedal could be pushed. 
>> My next slide is called how does this apply? [Speaker Faint/Unclear] we can work to destabilize these norms. This is not an exhaustive list. What I am attracted to is create ways this could be applied to social movements or activism. This is not an exhaustive list. I am hoping what comes out of the conversation following the lecture is more of a discussion of ways to change social perceptions of disability and the social position of disability. These are some of my suggestions and I like him because they are things individuals can do. There is lots of power in group movements. I really have a lot of respect for activist groups and collectives, but I also know that sometimes leading a lecture, people are hungry for things they can do it themselves and their own back yard. These the things that could be group or individual. Being aware of language. This is an interesting one. This is something that you can reflect on in your head or maybe you want to be focal, it depends on the situation and who you are. Thinking about for example, when I say that TV show is so lame, do I mean that TV show has some sort of physical impairment or do I mean that I don't like the TV show? [Speaker Faint/Unclear] if I describe something is being retarded. Am I using an and political slang term to describe that objects cognition? Or am I saying that I don't like that object? How does that socially position those who may again feel pressed by a label or may experience being called that name. Thinking about things how we condition disability when we talk about it? If you noticed, I switched back and forth between a disabled person in person with a disability. Thinking about a person with the disability, the use of having [Speaker Faint/Unclear], the use of the disability separates the person from the disability. It's somehow insinuates there is somehow a small erasure of humanness, but coupled with the disability. I think it is something that needs to be thought about, in thinking about what it does to the cultural understanding of disability. If I'm going to argue and we contextualize [Speaker Faint/Unclear] why would I remove it from my person? I wouldn't say I am experience Irish heritage or I at experiencing woman does. I would say I am a woman or by an Irish. Those are part of my identity. Those are components of how identified in the same way. My disability creates and shapes to that end, why would I remove it from my space? I like to use the term disabled person, but I also understand a lot of people are not comfortable with that. 
>> The second way I have thought to reposition disability is averting social situations. This could look like many things. This could be trying to create universal space within a class room or a community group. An example of this is I had a class in the summer and with that talking to the professor or giving her a letter that would minimize my disability or anything like that, she would come to class early in she would move the desk so that a wheelchair could move through. She also made are created a culture of not meeting backpacks on the floor so that I could leave and go to the bathroom and come back again. In that space, she had taken a space that is usually fairly tight and cramped with lots of debris on the floor and changed it so that it would be reflexive to my body meant and I would have the same opportunities as the other people in the class as far as navigating and making choices. Another example is recognizing the legitimacy of disabilities position within an everyday situation. For example, I went to a restaurant once with a couple of friends and I was told that we could come in and week Edina, but we would have to sit by the bathroom. We were not allowed to sit at a craft table. When I asked why, they explained they felt that the wheelchair would get in the way of the servers. I told them that was inappropriate. They said the other option was that if I got out of my wheelchair, they would put it in the coat room and if I needed to go to the bathroom or when I wanted to leave, I could ask one of the servers. I talked about how inappropriate that was, that he would never expect an adult diner of any other embodiment to ask permission to go to the bathroom, to leave the restaurant, to go outside. Why would I have to do this? The host is response was you're lucky we are accessible at all. Within that space, my friends and I, my friends being active community and Allied, we decided to leave the restaurant. I think the experience at the restaurant was poignant because maybe even five years ago if I had gone through a restaurant and told me that I either had to sit at a specific table are had to get out of my wheelchair, I was lucky to have a ramp at all, my response would have been yes, I know, it is hard to be acceptable. What the last five years have done is bring to me that being disabled is legitimate, interesting and thoughtful and their dignified ways of moving to the world. I need to surround myself with the community that reflects that. [Speaker Faint/Unclear]
>> The third and final concept I have for how this could apply is through supporting spaces of [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. Supporting space is where there is an alternative to what the predominant contemporary perception is. That could be seen in things like hosting webinars of the merging ideas with disability scholarships. Supporting spaces for rethinking visibility and read represented disability, whether that is through supporting academic conferences or providing opportunities for different activists to get together through things like webinars or meetings, or facilitating disability culture night. I went to a conference in Tucson, Arizona and Christine and Dale were both there. There was a fantastic talent show where many of these talented people that were also people who had [Speaker Faint/Unclear] it was a fantastic space full of pride, disability and celebration. In supporting spaces, I think that is a different repositioning of the predominant social position of disability. That is how I see the theoretical side of thinking about have disabilities social position and where those dominant characters come from that can be applied to activism and can be reworked in individual Dave the life. That is my final slide. To close, I want to thank you again for listening and thank you for Citizens with disabilities Ontario for inviting me. I appreciate all of the facilities to work at Christine and Pat have done to make this happen. Thanks so much. I hope you enjoyed it. 
>> Thank you, that was fantastic. We are now going to open the floor for questions and comments. I can start with a question, I love the idea from an example the lack of social imagination, something Dale and I talk about on what in reference [Speaker Faint/Unclear]there is no way to imagine some alternative space. I was looking at its introduction to a psychology course not like and I had is suspicion [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. How can we foster this social imagination? Particularly when it seems so far from the reality [Speaker Faint/Unclear]? 
>> That is a great question and I think one that requires a lot of reflection and is extremely important in creating the next step for fostering as social imagination. In my opinion, and since I have used a [Speaker Faint/Unclear], trying to integrate disability studies text into the classroom and creating alternative narrative's to the concept that there is enormous his body and a convenient body. Troubling dominant discourse that is often brought up in the introduction psychology class's. What I am thinking about, [Speaker Faint/Unclear] book is an excess of will read with shorter essays that reflect on both the disability as well as social imagery and positioning disability. She uses the town I think is an acceptable to most people and the undergrads. I would say in creating an alternative imagination exposing students to different text, I'm just going to say books, that Foster or applied this imagination of disability as well as promoting within a scholastic or university environment, different spaces at disability representation. Whether that is taking note of the relief of alternative [Speaker Faint/Unclear] or a teacher coming to you to talk at the University or even becoming involved in thinking about curriculum and who is hired within that department. I think it is a multi tiered approach that can be converted from many different levels. Whether bringing information or scholarships to students, whether that is trying to change personnel or structure within departments or whether that is promoting events that exemplify a different disability culture along with that. This is a tall order, but creating space for that imagination to permeate. In thinking about your example, someone who is disabled and athletic is pretty much understood as being an Olympic athlete. They are either the ones to go to the Olympics or they are there for rehab and there is not really the space in between. At UT, they just installed a bunch of different accessible gym equipment and train staff on have to use it and have been advertising in trying to promote that it is barrier free. It has created an interesting synergy at UT because there are students just coming in and working out for the sake of a working out or doing recreational things because it is, in fact, recreational. Another week trading to a social imagination is creating a space for this alternative experience can exist in permeate. It is a broad question lots of people could chime in on. 
>> That was an excellent answer. It was a broad question. Does anybody else have a question? I'm going to read dale's question. Great presentation. Just a comment, I notice the section about [Speaker Faint/Unclear]
>> [Audio Cutting In/Out]
>> I have to some extent. I think it is something interesting and came up a couple of weeks ago at a conference presentation. Someone from the audience was asking what about masculinity, what do you know about masculinity, who share read. I am not very well bred on the coexistence of masculinity in disability, but it would be something I would interested in looking into in a greater depth. I very much agree from my own personal experience of interacting with men with disabilities and interacting common sense perceptions. I would agree with the typologies you had found within your research. I would be grateful if you could offer some reading that I can do on that. Again, I think it is a piece that is vital and right now missing from my analysis. I think it is important as well. The only kind of comment I would potentially may come a kind of reminds me of back to the documentary murder ball. It is a document to Mayor on wheelchair rugby. It is a good documentary on rugby. It is often taken up with in the mainstream media as a guide or hallmark of how you would be a man in in a wheelchair. It is very much marketed from the perspective of finding out how these men still have sex, [Speaker Faint/Unclear] that is a problematic Hallmark to half. It really simplifies the identity with disabilities and the identity of what it is to be a man. That is really my only cultural experience about masculinity and disability. I would be happy to expand my reading list. I am sorry I cannot offer more of an answer. 
>> Does anyone else have a comment or question? 
>> I think a lot of what you have said we can take to our meeting on the 22nd of October. He is reviewing the accessibility for the disability act and we will recovering the standards and how the [Speaker Faint/Unclear] has succeeded so far. So far, we have transportation, communications, I may be missing a few. We are now doing built-in environment, customer service standards which is supposed to be coming in by January 1st. CWDO has also written some papers, you might want to go to our websitewww.cwdo.org and read up on some of that. It has a questionnaire that you can fill out. I think a lot of the examples that you gave tonight really tell the story of how the accessibility is changing. How our own thinking is changing. Like you said in the restaurant example that you gave what we did our might have done 10 years ago is not the same way that we would be asked today. For instance, I am totally blind and the use the jaws screen reader. I happen to sense that traffic is more busy now. I don't walk as quickly as I used to. I like help crossing the street. I do use a guide dog. I just feel more comfortable and safe if someone is helping me cross the street. When I am standing any quarter and I am looking comfortable and that kind of thing, I might say, excuse me and ask for some help and hoping that someone would turn to me and be able to assist or that I could follow them with my guide dog so that I could get across the street safely. I think people being aware of those kinds of issues and the accessibility and the different needs of various people would really make a difference and would be, I think, important in reviewing how our accessibility is going. 
>> We have an on-line meeting with [Speaker Faint/Unclear] coming up. That is why that came up. 
>> Pat had mentioned that last night. I think that is a fantastic observation, the way we think about accessibility changing and our attitudes are constantly fluid and flocks in how we move to the world. I think it is something that is interesting to consider as we try to negotiate legislation and these benchmarks. [Speaker Faint/Unclear] I think your comment creates some great points to ponder. Thank you. 
>> I like your position on language, something I have been doing lately is switching between a disabled person and a person with a disability. Have you met any resistance or reaction to this? Is I originally went to one extreme and only said disabled person, but I was reading a lot of literature [Speaker Faint/Unclear] a lot of people like that idea with a person with disability. I want to know your experience with the juggling of the language? 
>> My experience has been similar to yours. When I was doing my master's thesis, I was part of an on-line community of people with disabilities predominantly women who were discussing things like body image and moving to the world and things like that. But prior to starting my master's in disability studies, I would always say a person with a disability and that would be the dominant turn used on the message board. Coming back from class and started using disabled person all the time and it became a point of contention. I was no longer identified as a peer but rather a person who did not understand the nuances experience of disability. In a lot of ways, I guess, their perception of disability had been their disability caused them a lot of pain or oppression. They wanted to remove that from themselves. In using disabled person, it wasn't necessarily taken up as a way I chose to be identified but rather as minimizing their visibility to our understanding a disability. It put me in an awkward space within the community. I started oscillating back-and-forth between person with a disability and disabled person. Using disabled person more when I was referring to myself rather than other people, that seemed to ease that transition. It has been an intense negotiation even with applying for jobs, I often find myself applying for jobs like facilities in social change or working within the area of disability. I find I am always having to please myself at an interview saying a person with a disability. [Speaker Faint/Unclear] as being the right way or a political nuance way. It becomes an interesting tension between my personal struggle are my personal identification in how I social the condition disability versus what is understood with any more public less academic interaction. It has been an interesting negotiation. The last position I held within the community, I was teaching life skills which is an interesting place in itself. What are facilitators was constantly talking [Speaker Faint/Unclear] one day offhandedly, [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. He wasn't able to work with that sense, somebody's are oppressed and somebody's are privileged and this is something that is something in flocks. [Speaker Faint/Unclear] it has been a tight rope of language to make things - others comfortable and not alienate people in my speaking. As much as I want people to respect and honor my politics, I also want people to be comfortable and open to listening of why I hold those views are why I have selected my language. I often find that oscillating back and forth it thinks about the tensions and the solidity between the two terms. The short answer is, yes I have experienced a struggle. It is something I think about a lot. 
>> Thanks a lot. 
>> Three see here, I agree with the language comment. I know over the years I've had many fights with people about what kind of language to use. Some people felt it doesn't matter what language you use. As long as there is a big difference between the language that we used to describe ourselves and the language that others choose to use. Terms like differently able and physically challenged at all of that our terms that other people use of ground persons with disabilities. I guess the people's first movement was one of the first of speaking about a person with the disabilities [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. We saw groups like that really start to put forward. The latest on that is around persons with disabilities as opposed to people with disabilities in recognition that each person may have their own preferences or accommodations and someone in order to participate fully. I know that language has evolved over time and there are times when I cringe because I will see a person with a disability using terminology that is very outdated and not the kind of terminology I would prefer to use. I understand with their experience and who they have been exposed to and their experience perhaps of being a client in a whole social network, that they have internalized some of that language as well and that perception. One of my favorite things, I have had an one-person campaign to get [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. Totally focusing on a person's mobility device. It is a person in a wheelchair. You're not picking up an empty chair. I am challenging drivers and customer service staff on that. I have actually notice the difference when their dispatching of the radio that they are starting to use other terminology. You're picking up a person in a wheelchair or scooter. This can really catch on. Just to get people to change their language which is symbolic of their perceptions has taken years to keep reinforcing that message. While I have the floor and before people start to go, I would like to invite people to fill in an evaluation for about this webinar. We have had some fantastic webinars. This one included is thought provoking and thoughtfully put together. And going to put into the chat area the link to our evaluation form. If you could please fill it in, we have been receiving funding from the federal government to provide for our captioning and other accommodation services that people might need to be able to fully participate. The evaluation forms we get about the sessions, whether you attended the session - or whether you're listening on an archive at a later date would be very helpful in terms of us getting some feedback about the importance of this kind of support for these types of events. I just want to comment that it has been a great webinar. Here comes the link. 
>> I want to add to Tracy's comment. I also struggled with the reading something or come across something like a report we book that was written in a different era and having trouble getting past the language sometimes, a [Speaker Faint/Unclear] on the one hand while you want to see language change, [Speaker Faint/Unclear] 
>> Had ever put [Speaker Faint/Unclear] in brackets [Speaker Faint/Unclear] 
>> I don't think I have ever done that. I think that is a fantastic [Speaker Faint/Unclear]. I'm going to start to do it. 
>> [Speaker Faint/Unclear] does anyone have a closing comment or question? We agree to leave it at that. I would like to thank you again, is a man. I appreciate your work and this was an excellent presentation. Thank you very much again. 
>> Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity. It has been a fantastic experience. Thank you very much. 
>> That concludes our webinar for tonight. I think you for your participation. 
>> Christine, thank you very much for lining up three presenters three weeks in a world of the highest caliber on some very provocative topics. This is been a wonderful series and I hope we will be able to do another one later on in the year. 
>> It was my pleasure. 
>> Have a good night everyone. Thank you for coming. They key to the Captioner as well. [Event Concluded]