In Our Wildest Imaginations: From Tragedy to Opportunity

1. In Our Wildest Imaginations:From Tragedy to Opportunity

2. Text description Photo of disadvantaged children and fashion models

3. Presented by Stephen Gilson and Liz DePoy www.astos.org at Shippensburg University on November 17, 2009

4. 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

5. Text description Clip art cartoon of an agenda

6. Remaining Snippets of History

7. Text description Picture of scissors

8. 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.

9. 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. Blind Leading the Blind, 1568Breughel

11. Text description Painting by Breughel: Blind Leading the Blind, 1568

12. 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.

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

14. Text description Sketch by Annibale Carracci: Hunchback, 16th-17th centuries.

15. Why people did and did not behave in normal ways became a major subject of many academic disciplines with diverse explanations competing for hegemony.

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

17. Text description Bell curve

18. Where are we now?

19. 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

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

21. Current medical responses—decrease disability through individual accommodation

22. Examples Giving extra time on a test to individuals with diagnosed medical conditions Professional intervention Building ramps for wheelchair users

23. 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

24. Social Negative Attitudes Negative Stereotype Stigma Devaluation

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

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

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

28. Economic Cannot contribute through remunerative work

29. Constructed Response • Change the social, political, economic, architectural cultural environments and leave the body alone • Example: • ADA

30. 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.

31. Contemporary DisciplinaryResponses Thinking, studying, and innovation

32. Zooming In on Disjuncture

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

34. 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.

35. 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

36. 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

37. environment environment environment body body body Full juncture Moderate or compliance juncture Disjuncture

38. Text description of image Graphic depiction of disjuncture and juncture

39. Disjuncture

40. 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.

41. 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)

42. 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

43. From Tragedy to Opportunity

44. 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

45. Tragedy

46. Opportunity

47. 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.

48. 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!

49. Opportunity: Performing artists - ndaf.org

50. Disability as Need