In Our Wildest Imaginations: From Tragedy to Opportunity

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In Our Wildest ImaginationsFrom Tragedy to
Opportunity
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Text description

• Photo of disadvantaged children and fashion models

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

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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

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Text description

• Clip art cartoon of an agenda

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Remaining Snippets of History
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Text description

• Picture of scissors

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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.

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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.

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Blind Leading the Blind, 1568 Breughel
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Text description

• Painting by Breughel Blind Leading the Blind,
  1568

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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.

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

• Sketch by Annibale Carracci Hunchback,
  16th-17th centuries.

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

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The foundation of contemporary conceptualizations

• French statistician Quetelet formulated the
  concept of "the normal man, who was both
  physically and morally normal.

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Text description

• Bell curve

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Where are we now?
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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

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Medical Diagnostic

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

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Current medical responsesdecrease disability
through individual accommodation
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Examples

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

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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

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Social

• Negative Attitudes
• Negative Stereotype
• Stigma
• Devaluation

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Political

• Social oppression
• Minority group model- discrimination towards
  difference

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Architectural

• Barriers in the built environment
• Architectural standard for standard body size,
  shape, function

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Text description of image

• Picture of Da Vincis Vitruvian Man drawing

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Economic

• Cannot contribute through remunerative work

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Constructed Response

• Change the social, political, economic,
  architectural cultural environments and leave the
  body alone
• Example
• ADA

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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.

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Contemporary DisciplinaryResponses

• Thinking, studying, and innovation

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Zooming In on Disjuncture
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Text description of graphic

• Three images telescope, universe, and Earth

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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.

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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

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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

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environment
environment
environment
body
body
body
Full juncture
Moderate or compliance juncture
Disjuncture
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Text description of image

• Graphic depiction of disjuncture and juncture

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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.
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• 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.

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• 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)

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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

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From Tragedy to Opportunity
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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

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Tragedy

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Opportunity
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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.

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• 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!

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Opportunity Performing artists - ndaf.org
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Disability as Need
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Disability as Power
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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.

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Disability as Tech Marketing Power (WOW)

• Global ICT Demographics Whats 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

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• Needy

• Cool!

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Text description

• Two shower seats

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Putting this thinking to work
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Text description

• Two body builders of different heights and builds

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.
• Lets watch, listen , think and hear the
  opportunities
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v9Jgfp0hVwPI

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• Thank You!!!
• Questions and comments?