Rethinking Knowledge and Power: Reflections on the Disability Community in Canada

1. Rethinking Knowledge and Power: Reflections on the Disability Community in Canada Presentation to the Canadian Disability Studies Association/Association Canadienne des Études sur L’Incapacité Wilfrid Laurier University, Congress 2012 31 May 2012 Michael J. Prince

2. Canadian disability community • Comprises several arenas: • diverse sector of service organizations • policy community of interest groups and coalitions • comparatively new social movement • constitutional category of citizens under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms • research and knowledge production network

3. Divergent perspectives on ability/disablement • charitable paternalism • spiritual humanitarianism • practices of medical expertise • welfare or warfare statism • forbidden narratives • experiential stories versus official rhetoric • discourse on systemic oppression

4. Canadian State as a site of knowledge/power on disability • Production of data and the dissemination of information • Suppression of information sharing and of knowledge generation and contestation • Hierarchical classification of knowledge • Regulation of information production and circulation • Cooptation of innovative ideas and critical discourses

5. The politics of knowledge production • Numerous ways of manufacturing, managing and manoeuvring data, information and discourse • Not so much about generating evidence in contrast to ignorance, as about multiple forms of knowledge interacting with, and struggling against each other within power relationships • Certain ideas and information on disability are organized into public debate and policy making while other ideas and information are organized out of official politics

6. Future for Disability Studies • A promising part lies in remembering the past and in recovering historical knowledge • Using conceptions of power and knowledge that: • acknowledge negative and productive effects • take into account the full range of governing mechanisms and policy instruments at play in state structures and civil institutions • recognize continuities and disjunctures in the exercise of authority, and thus the possibilities for resistance and social change • Connecting with disability activism

7. Thank you Michael J. Prince Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy Faculty of Human and Social Development mprince@uvic.ca Disabling Poverty and Enabling Citizenship CURA http://www.ccdonline.ca/en/socialpolicy/poverty-citizenship