2020-2021

Here is a list of events that took place in 2020-2021

Date: 30th November 2020

Time: 12-2pm

Pressenter 1 Name: Mette Westander

Presenter 2 Name: Adan Jerreat-Poole

To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/drf-seminar-series-event-1-tickets-124521110995

Talk 1 Title: Disability Discrimination faced by UCL students and Recommended Measures

Talk 1 Abstract:

The Disabled Students Network at University College London conducted a survey, gathering testimonies from 33 disabled students regarding their experiences within different sections of the university.

The report explains what the university’s legal responsibilities are and, for each department responsible, presents testimonies showing the ways in which students are not being provided with access. We find that:

1. students experience a heavy administrative burden which in practice hinders them from accessing their education

2. many disabled students experience subtle but destructive instances of ableism from staff

3. disabled students’ support is often severely delayed or not implemented even after it has been approved

4. students are often not informed about their rights or misled about their rights

5. very few disabled students make formal complaints when they experience discrimination

67% of students surveyed stated that they had experienced ableism at UCL and 58% stated that they had been made to feel unwelcome at UCL due to their disability.

Each section in the report is accompanied by recommendations for change and toward the end we analyse some of the systematic problems which also need to be addressed. Key recommendations include:

1. Improved internal communication, responsibility, and leadership – a more joined up and accountable approach to disability support

2. Training for staff regarding practical aspects of accessibility as well as attitudes and legal responsibilities

3. Improved self-correction methods – e.g. through complaints, surveys of the student experience and student representation

4. A more anticipatory approach, including information campaigns and regular reviews of current accessibility.

Talk 2 Title: Digital Disabled: Micro Essays on Intimacy, Pain, and Technology

Talk 2 Abstract:

Sleep. Tweet. Take a painkiller. Join a Zoom call. Think. Forget to recharge your cell phone. Breathe. Forget to take your medication. Dream. This presentation is invested in small scholarship and multimedia forms of academic research; in the kinds of work produced by chronically ill bodies in digital spaces during a global pandemic. This series of micro essays explores disabled/crip forms of digital intimacy that flow between bodies (physical and virtual) and technologies, the relationship between pain and digital media, and the role of analog in critical discussions of access. This emerging research merges personal experience with broader conversations, theories, and trends surrounding disability justice, access, and feminist new media.

Bio: Adan is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University. They are a white settler in Canada who lives with chronic pain, depression, and anxiety. They study disability, digital media, and popular culture. Their work has appeared in Feminist Media Studies, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, and Game Studies. 

Date: 14th December 2020

Time: 11am-1pm

Presenter 1 Name(s): Jen Slater and Charlotte Jones

Presenter 2 Name: Harriet Dunn

To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/drf-seminar-series-event-2-tickets-128601918801

Title (talk 1): Signs, accessibility and misfits in the toilet

Abstract:

Considering our orientation to objects, Ahmed (2006, p. 31) notes that ‘[s]ome things are relegated to the background in order to sustain a certain direction’. Toilets are one such thing. Despite being something that everybody needs to use, and completely necessary for other ‘stuff’ to take place (work, play, travel, activism, anything!), they are left unspoken, considered too mundane or taboo to be discussed. This presentation of an in-progress paper will draw on Around the Toilet (aroundthetoilet.com; Slater and Jones, 2018), a research project that considers what makes a safe and accessible toilet space, and argues that toilets are very much worthy of consideration. In particular, we will interrogate signs on toilet doors in relation to disabled people’s experiences of trying to access toilets away from home, and therefore space more widely. We will ask how toilet signs ‘impact on the orientation of bodies and space’ (Ahmed in Titchkosky, 2011, 65), both in relation to everyday movement, but also discourses of passivity, charity and suspicion that surround disability. Drawing on the work of Ahmed (2012), Dolmage (2017), Fritsch (2013) and others, we will situate toilets within institutional contexts, considering what work toilet door signs do for an institution, for example, signalling a supposedly inclusive environment whilst often continuing to deny access to many disabled people and policing the borders of disability.

Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham: Duke University Press.

Ahmed, S. (2012). On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Durham & London: Duke University Press.

Dolmage, J. (2017). From steep steps to retrofit to universal design, from collapse to austerity. In J. Boys (Ed.), Disability, Space, Architecture: A Reader(pp. 102–113). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315560076

Fritsch, K. (2013). The Neoliberal Circulation of Affects: Happiness, accessibility and the capacitation of disability as wheelchair. Health, Culture and Society, 5(1), 135–149. https://doi.org/10.5195/HCS.2013.136

Slater, J., & Jones, C. (2018). Around the Toilet: a research project report about what makes a safe and accessible toilet space. Sheffield. https://doi.org/10.7190/9781843874195

Titchkosky, T. (2011). The Question of Access: Disability, Space, Meaning. Toronto and London: University of Toronto Press.

Title (Talk 2): Opening up opportunities – PGCE trainees gaining experience and skills to teach and support pupils with visual impairment

Abstract:

My PhD research explores PGCE Secondary Art and Design trainees’ experiences of working with pupils with visual impairment (VI) through facilitating an art education project. According to the Newly Qualified Teachers’: Annual Survey (2016, p.19) ‘NQT’s felt their training had prepared them less well to cater for pupils with SEN’. This means trainees often feel less secure in their capacity to develop appropriate Learning Outcomes for pupils with VI. However, as part of an art education project, the Head Teacher at a specialist school for VI and other needs in the Northwest of England invited trainees to develop art activities for pupils with VI. The aim of the project was to better prepare them for working with pupils with VI. This paper begins by discussing PGCE trainees’ preparations for the art education project. This is followed by giving an overview of the art education project – what trainees did with the pupils. The final section considers a snapshot of the data and its implications for practice. The paper is based on an article (in press) for the National Society for Education in Art and Design magazine.

Bio

I am a final year PhD researcher in the Faculty of Arts, Professional and Social Studies at Liverpool John Moores University. I also teach on the undergraduate Education and SEND course at LJMU. In addition to this, I represent the UK women’s visually impaired cricket team. My research explores PGCE secondary art and design trainees’ experiences of facilitating an art education project for pupils with VI at a specialist school for VI in the Northwest of England. I’m passionate about ensuring children and young people with VI have opportunities to engage and participate in art education.

Date: 22nd March 2021

Time: 10am-12 Noon

Pressenter 1 Name: Gill Crawshaw

Presenter 2 Name: Vera Kubenz

To register: Please sign up with Eventbrite

Talk 1 Title: Work not the workhouse: Deaf and disabled mill workers in the UK textile industry

Talk 1 Abstract:

A common assertion in disability studies is that the Industrial Revolution excluded disabled people from the workplace. In the leading industry in terms of employment and output, textile manufacture, this was not the case.

Disabled people’s own accounts as well as reports of employers show that Deaf and disabled people were part of the workforce of the textile industry in the UK. In addition, evidence collected as part of investigations on behalf of government into conditions in textile mills showed high levels of industrial injuries. Accidents from machinery, constant loud noise and the effects of working in unventilated premises led to great numbers of workers becoming disabled. Many of these disabled people continued to work through sheer necessity, to avoid the workhouse and to meet the demands of the industry.

This raises interesting questions about the contribution of disabled people to the Industrial Revolution. It is arguably a period when disabled workers were more included in the workforce than they are today!

I would welcome your comments on this project and any suggestions for continuing  the research further. 

Biog: I’m a curator, I draw on my experience of disability activism to organise exhibitions and events which highlight issues affecting disabled people. My curatorial practice includes writing and research.

Exhibitions have addressed representation (Possible All Along, 2020), charity (Piss on Pity, 2019), cuts to welfare and public spending (Shoddy, 2016), and access (The Reality of Small Differences, 2014).

I’m interested in the intersection of disabled people’s lives with textile heritage as well as contemporary textile arts.

I’m an alumna of the first Disability Studies cohort at the Centre for Disability Studies, University of Leeds (1994).

Talk 2 Title: Disability and COVID-19 in the Global South

Talk 2 Abstract: This talk will present an overview of the findings from a literature review on the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of disabled people in Low- and Middle-Income Countries in the areas of Health, Education, Economy, and Community. The review shows that despite repeated calls in academic and policy literature to involve disabled people in emergency planning, they have yet again been ‘forgotten’ during the pandemic and not included in decision-making processes. Lack of social protection means many are more worried about starving than contracting COVID-19. Furthermore, disabled people’s lives have been devalued, and labels such as ‘vulnerable’ disguise the systemic violence perpetrated against disabled people through discriminatory triage protocols and the closure of services for disabled people as they are not considered ‘essential’. As well as a discussion of the literature review findings and what they mean for disabled campaigners from both the Global South and Global North, there will also be some reflection on what it means to be doing research on disability in the Global South as a UK-based researcher and how to encourage equitable participation and decolonisation of knowledge.

Date: 9th April 2021

Time: 1-3pm

Pressenter 1 Name: Bev Pollitt

Presenter 2 Name: Petra Anders

To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/drf-seminar-series-event-4-tickets-147740504827

Talk 1 Title: #Undateables, asexuality and the intimate rights of disabled people

Talk 1 Abstract:

Undeniably, a wealth of socio-political activism pertaining to disability has been undertaken within recent years, much of which emanates from differing perspectives and considers a variety of aspects concerning rights and well-being. However, despite progressive movements, there has been little development surrounding the intimate rights of disabled people, with their entitlements in this area often going overlooked.

My research adopts a MMDA and TA approach to critically explore disability and sexuality as a broad concept, and then more specifically, in relation to Channel 4’s The Undateables. The research aims to satisfy a gap in the existing literature by unveiling the impact a reality dating programme, solely for disabled participants, has on public perceptions of disability and sexuality. Findings indicate The Undateables is principally an educational opportunity which produces a sense of parity, whilst simultaneously creating empowerment for disabled people, both individually and as a collective.

Whilst these findings affirm positive movement in this intimate area, additional findings exposed The Undateables as a voyeuristic opportunity which can be exploited by viewers to promote their own self-worth. Moreover, material associated with disability and sexuality is discovered to be besieged with heteronormative representations alongside being governed by the historical notion of masculinity and its allied supremacy.

Talk 2 Title: ‘What can I, you know, do in that department?’ – Disability and Cinematic Representations of Gender, Bodies and Sexualities

Talk 2 Abstract:

Cinematic narratives tell us a lot about how we perceive the gender, bodies or sexualities of disabled people. Thus we need to raise more awareness for their ‘hidden’ messages, especially if they are of high ‘learning and teaching value’ and unrealistic.

The eponymous protagonist of Michael Akers’s drama Morgan (2012) feels attracted to an able-bodied man after being left paralyzed from the waist down following an accident. As Morgan doubts that he will be able to ever have sex again he asks his physiotherapist quite bluntly: ‘What can I, you know, do in that department?’ The same question could/should be asked by filmmakers and mainstream society to question representations of gender, bodies and sexualities of disabled characters in film. Which stereotypical myths and metaphors of bodily ‘abnormality’ and absence of physical desire or even gender are perpetuated in feature films in connection with disabled characters? How can these myths and metaphors be challenged?

My paper combines disability studies and film studies. I also draw on what Thomas Hoeksema and Christopher Smit call the ‘teaching and learning value’ (Hoeksema/Smit 2001: 42) of inadequate cinematic representations of disability and on Thomas G. Gerschick’s observation that ‘the bodies of people with disabilities make them vulnerable to being denied recognition as women and men. The type of disability, its visibility, its severity, and whether it is physical or mental in origin mediate the degree to which the body of a person with a disability is socially compromised.’ (Gerschick 2008: 361)

By investigating how editing, camera and music perpetuate or challenge, emphasize or contrast with certain narratives of normalcy and diversity I will show that most contemporary feature films still make use of a disabled character’s gender, body and sexuality to establish a conflict. This applies to films such as Christian Alvart’s thriller Antibodies (2005) and Margarethe von Trotta’s drama I am the Other Woman (2006) as well as the more recent drama Stronger (2017) by David Gordon Green. Unfortunately, this key trend is often neglected if cinematic portrays of disabled people are discussed. In contrast, films such as Daniel Lind Lagerlöf’s Miffo (2003), Ben Lewin’s The Sessions (2012) or Morgan portray people who develop a positive attitude towards (their) disabled bodies and who have fulfilled sex lives. These films offer a healthy and more realistic portray of disabled people and their rights to define their gender and to develop good body feeling.

 This paper is an updated version of a paper I gave at the conference ‘Inclusion and Exclusion in the Welfare Society’ hosted by the Nordic Network on Disability Research in Copenhagen in 2019.

 References

 Akers, Michael D. 2012. Morgan

 Alvart, Christian. 2005. Antibodies: Antikörper

 Gerschick, Thomas J. 2008. ‘Toward a Theory of Disability and Gender’, in Karen E. Rosenblum, and Toni-Michelle Travis (eds), The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and Disability (New York NY: McGraw-Hill), pp. 360–63

 Green, David Gordon. 2017. Stronger

 Hoeksema, Thomas B., and Christopher R. Smit. 2001. ‘The Fusion of Film Studies and Disability Studies.’, in Christopher R. Smit, and Anthony Enns (eds), Screening disability: Essays on cinema and disability (Lanham, MD: University Press of America), pp. 33–43

 Lewin, Ben. 2012. The Sessions

 Lind Lagerlöf, Daniel. 2003. Miffo: Miffo

 Roehler, Oskar. 2005. Elementary Particles: Elementarteilchen

Trotta, Margarethe von. 2006. I am the Other Woman: Ich bin die Andere

Bio

Dr Petra Anders is based in Germany. Her research includes cinematic representations of disability, disability studies and gender, and teaching or dance practice. Publications include the chapter ‘More than the “Other”?: On Four Tendencies Regarding the Representation of Disability in Contemporary German Film (2005-2010)’ in Benjamin Fraser’s Cultures of Representation: Disability in World Film Context, ‘Screening Gay Characters with Disabilities’ as part of the blog NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality and the chapter ‘Mediale Zuschreibungen. Über die Rolle von Behinderung im Spielfilm’, in Kunst, Kultur und Inklusion. Menschen mit Behinderung in Presse, Film und Fernsehen: Darstellung und Berichterstattung edited by Juliane Gerland, Susanne Keuchel and Irmgard Merkt. Further publications, for example, an essay on disability in Wim Wenders’ films, are forthcoming in 2021.

Date: 18th May 2021

Time: 4-6pm

Pressenter 1: Harriet Cooper in conversation with Katharine Terrell

Presenter 2: Francesca Peruzzo, Mette Westander and Rille Raaper

To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/drf-seminar-series-event-5-tickets-151641567009

Talk 1 Title: Critical Disability Studies and the Disabled Child: Unsettling Distinctions

Talk 1 Abstract:

Dr. Cooper’s book examines the relationship between contemporary cultural representations of disabled children on the one hand, and disability as a personal experience of internalised oppression on the other. In focalising this debate through an exploration of the politically and emotionally charged figure of the disabled child, Harriet Cooper raises questions both about what it means to ‘speak for’ the other and about what resistance means when one is unknowingly invested in one’s own abjection.

Drawing on both the author’s personal experience of growing up with a physical impairment and on a range of critical theories and cultural objects – from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel The Secret Garden to Judith Butler’s work on injurious speech – the book theorises the making of disabled and ‘rehabilitated’ subjectivities. With a conceptual framework informed by both psychoanalysis and critical disability studies, it investigates the ways in which cultural anxieties about disability come to be embodied and lived by the disabled child.

Posing new questions for disability studies and for identity politics about the relationships between lived experiences, cultural representations and dominant discourses – and demonstrating a new approach to the concept of ‘internalised oppression’ – this book will be of interest to scholars and students of disability studies, medical humanities, sociology and psychosocial studies, as well as to those with an interest in identity politics more generally.

Dr Cooper will be in conversation with Katharine Terrell to talk about her new book! Also enjoy 20% of the book with the code: SMA03

The code can be used here.

Talk 2 Title: The making of the disabled activist: ableism and care of the self in English higher education

Talk 2 Abstract:

Francesca Peruzzo – University of Birmingham

Rille Raaper – Durham University

Mette Westander – Founding Member of Disabled Students UK

Higher education has become increasingly crucial (Armstrong and Barton, 2008), both for occupational opportunities and identity formation of disabled students. The promotion of equality provisions such as the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA), and more recently, the Equality Act (2010) and the report Inclusive Teaching and Learning in Higher Education as a route to Excellence (2017) attempted to make sure that physical, cultural, and educational barriers were removed and inclusive academic practices upheld. However, marginalisation and discrimination still happen, both numerically (only 13% of students identified as disabled within the overall student population in the UK in 2018/2019 according to HESA), and in quality of the experience (Osborne, 2019)

In this paper we explore how this persistent marginalisation has triggered a wave of activism among disabled students, who, just before the advent of the pandemic, had organised in a structured organisation, Disabled Students UK (DSUK), to fight against their unequal treatment and ableist practices in higher education (Dolmage, 2017). As during the pandemic discourses of ‘new normality’ emerged, opening spaces for discussions and opportunities of a different ways of doing higher education and being disabled.

Analytically mobilising Foucault’s (1991, 2000) ideas of the care of the self and others, we use qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with disabled students and documentary material produced by DSUK. This paper explores the subjective formation of activist disabled students as political subjects fighting discrimination in a ‘hybrid reality’ that indeed has opened for more inclusive and accessible spaces but also exposed the ableism of certain teaching and learning practices in higher education. The paper aims to promote discussion on the nurturing relationship that exists between the individual and the community in constituting disability activism. Drawing upon activists’ voices and experiences the paper seeks to bring about positive change to higher education policies and practices.

Barton, L.; Armstrong, F. (Eds.), (2008). Policy, Experience and Change: Cross Cultural Reflections on Inclusive Education. Springer: Springer.com.

Dolmage, J., (2017). Academic Ableism: disability and higher education. Ann Harbour: University of Michigan Press

Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In G. Burchell; C. Gordon; P. Miller, (Eds.), The Foucault effect: studies in governmentality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Foucault, M. (2000). The ethics of the concern of the self as a practice of freedom. In Rabinow, P. (Ed.), Ethics: Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984 Vol. 1. pp. 281 – 301. London: Penguin Books.

Osborne, T. (2019) Not lazy, not faking: teaching and learning experiences of university students with disabilities, Disability & Society, 34:2, 228-252, DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2018.1515724

Date: 15th June 2021

Time: Noon – 1pm

Pressenter 1: John Quinn

Presenter 2:

To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/drf-seminar-series-event-5-tickets-157790428419

Talk 1 Title: New Labour And The Disability Social Movement

Abstract:

When the Labour Party – restyled by its then leader Tony Blair as ‘New Labour’ – won a landslide victory in the 1997 General Election, there were high hopes among many disabled people that this would lead to a fairer system. What can be called the ‘Disability Social Movement’ had grown during the previous 18 years when the Conservative Party had been in power. However, this movement was still seen as small and unimportant and the first specific legislation concerning disability discrimination had only been passed in 1995, whereas ones concerning race and sex discrimination had become law in 1965 and 1975 respectively.

Nevertheless a group previously seen as weak and mainly dependent on others had started flexing its muscles to agitate for more understanding and independence, basically demanding the chance to speak for themselves – even those who could not speak conventionally – rather than for assumptions to be made about their welfare. However, as with many civil rights movements, there was a plethora of power struggles, made more complicated by the ways that disability can limit people’s abilities – both physically and mentally – and the differing degrees to which this happens. There was also a battle between organisations ‘for’ disabled people (usually run by those without disabilities) and user-led ‘of’ groups, not least about which methods of campaigning were most effective.

My presentation will be looking at how successful (or not) the social movement was in influencing the New Labour government which won three General Elections under Blair and lasted until his successor Gordon Brown lost to the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010. I will also be considering whether disability activism today has been influenced by Labour now having been out of power for over a decade.

About me: I am a former PhD student in Sheffield University’s politics department, having previously completed a research methods MA. Because of health problems – both physical and mental – I was unable to complete my doctorate but have decided to try and revisit it – initially with this presentation – just to prove that I can. Fingers crossed.