Transcript Disability as social science

In Our Wildest Imaginations:
From Tragedy to Opportunity
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 Photo of disadvantaged children and fashion models
Presented by
Stephen Gilson and Liz DePoy
www.astos.org
at Shippensburg University on November 17, 2009
Our agenda for today
 Gaze backwards at the history of disability as the basis
for where we are today
 Current thinking about disability
 Our vision and how to get there
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 Clip art cartoon of an agenda
Remaining Snippets of History
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 Picture of scissors
Bodily Boundaries of Humanity in Early
Civilizations
 Who is worthy of being considered human?
 Ancient Greece often discarded extremely anomalous
neonates
 In early western civilizations limits of humanity were in
part based on body compositions.
 “Deformed” infants were not considered to be human.
 Less extreme bodies were considered to be human
variations.
Middle Ages
 Individuals who were anomalous in appearance or
activity were purportedly placed on earth to engender
charity and tolerance in the masses.
 Context: Poor living conditions created conditions
which were considered to be typical and in which sick
and crippled bodies were not atypical.
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Blind Leading the Blind, 1568
Breughel
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 Painting by Breughel: Blind Leading the Blind, 1568
Enlightenment
 Belief in demonology was slowly being replaced by
science.
 The belief that illness and differences in human activity
occurred from that which could be observed in the
physical world is reflected in the art of the renaissance
period.
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Annibale Carracci, Hunchback, 16th-17th centuries.
The careful attention of the artist details the anatomical shape of this
individual with an atypical physical appearance.
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Sketch by Annibale Carracci:
Hunchback, 16th-17th centuries.
 Why people did and did not behave in normal ways
became a major subject of many academic disciplines
with diverse explanations competing for hegemony.
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The foundation of contemporary
conceptualizations
French statistician Quetelet formulated the concept of "the
normal man,” who was both physically and morally normal.
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 Bell curve
Where are we now?
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Two overarching intellectual trends
 Disability as deficit
 Medical-diagnostic
 Disability as internal to the body
 Emerged from ascendance of science and technology
 Disability as constructed
 Grew out of a counter-response to deviation and objectification
 Attempted to uncouple bodies from oppression and
discrimination
 Looked to the social, political, economic, physical etc.
environment, not the body, as the locus of disability
 Emerged from post-modern thinking about diversity
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Medical Diagnostic
Locates disability within humans
and defines it as an anomalous
medical condition of long-term or
permanent duration.
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Current medical responses—decrease disability
through individual accommodation
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Examples
 Giving extra time on a test to individuals with
diagnosed medical conditions
 Professional intervention
 Building ramps for wheelchair users
Constructed Explanations
 Disability is a condition that results from
limitations imposed on individuals (with
or even without diagnosed medical
conditions) from external factors.
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Social
Political
Cultural
Architectural
Economic
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Social
 Negative Attitudes
 Negative Stereotype
 Stigma
 Devaluation
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Political
 Social oppression
 Minority group model- discrimination towards
difference
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Architectural
 Barriers in the built environment
 Architectural standard for “standard” body size, shape,
function
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 Picture of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man drawing
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Economic
 Cannot contribute through remunerative work
Constructed Response
 Change the social, political, economic, architectural
cultural environments and leave the body alone
 Example:
 ADA
Contemporary Disciplinary
Explanations
 Disability as social science
 ethical and political questions raised (e.g. Baby Jane
Doe, human rights, physician assisted suicide, etc)
 Disability as humanities
 disability as representational system more than a
medical problem, fabricated narrative of the body
(Garland- Thomson, 2004), media studies, design
 Disability as science
 health, genetics, surveillance, engineering, computer
science, etc.
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Contemporary Disciplinary
Responses
 Thinking, studying, and innovation
Zooming In on Disjuncture
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Text description of graphic
 Three images: telescope, universe, and Earth
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Disability as Disjuncture
 Explains disability as an interactive “ill-fit” between
bodies (defined broadly) and environments (defined
broadly)
 Brings us to query the universe of environmental
design and symbol in delineating the category of
disability and affixing the value of those who fit within
it.
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What is a body?
The body, its appearance and its experience
 The sensory body
 The cognitive body
 The social-emotional body
 The spiritual body
 The economic body
 The productive body
 The body of ideas and meanings
 The body in multiple garb and spaces
What is the
“Environment?”
 The entire set of conditions under which one operates
including but not limited to:
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Physical
Sensory
Virtual
Constructed (political, economic, social, etc.)
Spiritual
Expressive
Intellectual
environment
environment
body
environment
body
body
Full juncture
Moderate or
compliance
juncture
Disjuncture
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 Graphic depiction of disjuncture and juncture
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Disjuncture
Full Juncture
Compliance
Disjuncture
(Moderate) Juncture
Environmental, space,
and product design
outcomes which take
into account the full
diversity of human
bodies, ideas,
experiences,
preferences, contexts,
aesthetics, and hold full
participation as a value
foundation (e.g.,
ambient environments,
relevant technology,
commercially available
solutions).
Environmental, space,
and product outcome
which responds to
compliance with
minimal legal physical
access standards (e.g.,
mobility
accommodations,
Braille signage).
Environmental, space,
and product design
outcome which does
not account for access
for diverse human
bodies, preferences or
experiences.
Our initial thinking about disjuncture emerged from a
conversation in a disability studies class in which we asked
students to reflect on the current rationale for typical and
accommodative standards for built and virtual environments.
The students indicated that they just took these
environmental features for granted and had not thought about
why doorways, chair heights, computer access and so forth
could not be reconceptualized differently.
We then consulted the literature and found
the following:
•Built and virtual environmental and product
design standards for industrial and post
industrial contexts are constructed around
Enlightenment ideals of the human body, its
balance, proportion, emphasis, rhythm, and
unity (Margolin, 2002)
Fields and disciplines informing
and teaching disjuncture
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Political theory
Economics
Geography
Engineering
Medicine
Sociology
Business
Education
Law
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Art
Technology
Literature
Disability studies
Folklore
Communications
Philosophy
Professions
Computer science
From Tragedy to
Opportunity
Healing Disjuncture (Creating
Full Juncture)
 Change bodies, environments or both
 Eliminate binary categories of disabled/not disabled
 Eliminate segregation
 Provide multiple options in diverse venues (commercial,
professional)
 Attend to aesthetics, context, complexity
 Map problems to reveal complexity and potential directions
for healing disjuncture
Tragedy
Opportunity
Text from Colours (1)
 Like our products the personality of Colours is that of
leadership and understanding, "no pun intended." We
hope to provide an outlet to voice suggestions,
ultimately allowing you to change the way people see
the disabled and yourself. It is our goal to increase each
persons experiences through mobility, education and
most importantly, the general societies awareness
toward people.
 Yes, we believe we produce some of the best
wheelchairs in the world. But, that is not what we are
bragging about. What we are really proud of are the
people who are using our chairs. They are in our eyes
individuals who have a spirit unmatched by our
competition. So, our thanks are to you the customer for
joining our mini community and doing what you do
best live your life to the fullest!
Opportunity: Performing
artists - ndaf.org
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Disability as Need
Disability as Power
Disability as Recipient of
Technology Help
 Assistive technology is technology used by individuals with
disabilities in order to perform functions that might
otherwise be difficult or impossible. (The National Center
on Accessible Information Technology in Education) What
is a Cognitive Prosthesis?
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A cognitive prosthetic is assistive technology that helps a
person with cognitive deficits function more independently
in certain tasks. Unlike other commercial products with
similar goals, it is not one piece of software or device, but an
entire system that helps the individual in ways that are
specific to that person's needs.
Disability as Tech
Marketing Power (WOW)
Global ICT Demographics: What´s at Stake
 850 million personal computers
 1+ billion Internet users (includes shared and mobile access)
 1.3 billion telephone land lines
 1.5 billion TV sets
 2.4 billion radios
 2.7 billion cell phones, 1.8 billion text messaging users
Needy
Cool!
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 Two shower seats
Putting this thinking to
work
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 Two body builders of different heights and builds
Our viewpoint
 Responses to disability must “take an intellectual and
professional village”.
 Multiple perspectives must be married to design and
marketing thinking and action to advance significant
and lasting social change for people with disabilities and
communities across the globe.
Short Term thinking
 For the short-run, without the service and a purposive,
thoughtful market orientation becoming friends with
one another, services will continue to de-value
disability category members.
Long-term thinking
 A generic environment that responds to the full
diversity of humans, and thus designer disability
services and products, that brand and segregate
humans into binary categories as they exist today will
not be necessary
Short-Term Thinking
 For the short-run, without the service and a purposive,
thoughtful market orientation becoming friends with
one another, services will continue to “de-value”
disability category members.
Long-Term Thinking
 A generic environment that responds to the full
diversity of humans, and thus designer disability
services and products, that brand and segregate
humans into binary categories as they exist today will
not be necessary
So Now what?
 Using contemporary practices that are aligned with
larger powerful global trends typically not thought of
as disability and human rights scholarship provides the
opportunity for significant change.
 Let’s watch, listen , think and hear the opportunities
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jgfp0hVwPI
Thank You!!!
Questions and comments?
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