In Our Wildest Imaginations: From Tragedy to Opportunity

Text description  Photo of disadvantaged children and fashion models

Presented by Stephen Gilson and Liz DePoy 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

Text description  Clip art cartoon of an agenda

Remaining Snippets of History 10/14/2015

Text description  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. 10/14/2015

Blind Leading the Blind, 1568 Breughel 10/14/2015

Text description  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. 10/14/2015

Annibale Carracci, Hunchback, 16th-17th centuries. The careful attention of the artist details the anatomical shape of this individual with an atypical physical appearance. 10/14/2015

Text description 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. 10/14/2015

The foundation of contemporary conceptualizations French statistician Quetelet formulated the concept of "the normal man,” who was both physically and morally normal. 16

Text description  Bell curve

Where are we now?Where are we now? 18

Two overarching intellectual trendsTwo 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 19

Medical DiagnosticMedical Diagnostic  Locates disability within humans and defines it as an anomalous medical condition of long-term or permanent duration. 20

Current medical responses—decrease disability through individual accommodation 21

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.  Social  Political  Cultural  Architectural  Economic 23

Social  Negative Attitudes  Negative Stereotype  Stigma  Devaluation 24

Political  Social oppression  Minority group model- discrimination towards difference 25

Architectural  Barriers in the built environment  Architectural standard for “standard” body size, shape, function 26

Text description of imageText description of image  Picture of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man drawing 27

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. 30

Contemporary Disciplinary Responses  Thinking, studying, and innovation

Zooming In on DisjunctureZooming In on Disjuncture 32

Text description of graphic  Three images: telescope, universe, and Earth 33

Disability as DisjunctureDisability 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. 34

What is a body?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:  Physical  Sensory  Virtual  Constructed (political, economic, social, etc.)  Spiritual  Expressive  Intellectual

Full junctureModerate or compliance juncture Disjuncture body environment body

Text description of imageText description of image  Graphic depiction of disjuncture and juncture 38

Disjuncture Full Juncture Compliance (Moderate) Juncture Disjuncture 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  Political theory  Economics  Geography  Engineering  Medicine  Sociology  Business  Education  Law  Art  Technology  Literature  Disability studies  Folklore  Communications  Philosophy  Professions  Computer science 42

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 10/14/2015

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?  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

NeedyCool!

Text description  Two shower seats

Putting this thinking to work

Text description  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 ThinkingShort-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 ThinkingLong-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

 Thank You!!!  Questions and comments? 64