1. September 6, 2005 Jamie Pomeranz, Ph.D., CRC
Disability Culture
September 6, 2005
Jamie Pomeranz, Ph.D., CRC

2. Outline Defining culture. Culture and oppression.
Minorities and culture.
Development of disability culture.
Advocacy and cultural development.

3. Culture
T. S. Elliot (1949)
Organic Structure allowing for passing to others. (Family).
Local Cultures within larger cultures.
Unity and diversity within cultures.

4. Culture Eagleton (1979). Thompson, Ellis, & Wildavsky (1990).
Society structure of feelings, lived manners, habits, morals, values, the learned atmosphere of its learnt behavior and belief.
Thompson, Ellis, & Wildavsky (1990).
Composed of values, beliefs, norms, rationalizations, symbols, ideologies.

5. Culture Thompson et al, 1990). Storey (1993).
Total way of life of people, interpersonal relations and attitudes.
Storey (1993).
Popular culture – widely accepted or favored.
In summary, culture provides for meaning of life.

6. Culture and Oppression
Slaves – forced to give up cultural identities to reflect their master’s control.
African Cultural identities lead to African American Culture
Native Americans – Forced off lands. Lives and traditions replaced by reservations, geographic limitations, and governmental control.

7. Culture and Oppression
Jewish Culture – Holocaust. Culture lead to certain survival.
People with Disabilities – Social Darwinism
Segregation from the rest of society
Eugenics – Nazi Germany.
Lack of centuries of collective identity and history. Only recent collective disability identity (independent living, paralyzed veterans.

8. Minorities and Culture
Disability often a cause for grieving and loss.
Physicians “ cure at best, improvement at worst.”
Ethnic minorities and persons with disabilities are often forced to transmit culture in untraditional ways.

9. Minorities and Culture
Family as the primary cultural transmitter not always available.
Ex. African Americans. Persons with disabilities in a family with no others with disabilities.
Historically, isolation has been a major obstacle for people with disabilities in developing culture.

10. Minorities and Culture
Isolation of people with disabilities has lead to the sharing of common experiences allowing for a rapid growth of a collective identity.
Local developing cultures among people with disabilities are encompassed within a larger culture.

11. Minorities and Culture
Existence of local cultures with larger cultures within minority communities.
Native Americans with diverse cultures
Different types of disabilities.
Lack of family and communities to reject or insulate people with disabilities from able identities ascribed by the dominant culture.

12. Minorities and Culture
The collective development of culture uprising at Galludet university.
Persons with disabilities have learned from other minorities the importance of culture in developing personal identity and strength
Strong sense of identity empowers people to preserve cultures in the face of great opposition.

13. Development of Disability Culture
Life with a disability becomes something to celebrate rather than an existence to be mourned.
Disability seen as diversity, not deficiency.
Problems with the environment rather than exclusively with the individual.
Civil Rights rather than individual treatment becomes the focus.
Americans with Disabilities Act (1990).

14. Development of Disability Culture
Independent living movement

15. Advocacy and Cultural Development
Political Activism
Every Culture has its heroes and icons
Galludet University
Patricia Wright – person with a visual disability
Bob Kafka (ADAPT) – American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit.
People with disabilities are defining their lives rather than accepting pathology-laden roles and labels placed on them by society.

16. Advocacy and Cultural Development
Disability becoming defined as different rather than bad.
Thriving not just surviving.