Major Research Papers - Critical Disability Studies

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Open Access
A Politics of Hope in the Narratives of People with Dementia
(2005-10-05) O'Brien, Jennifer; Barton, Len
The social model of disability challenges the notion of disability as a personal tragedy and reason for despair. Seven autobiographies written by people with dementia are analysed within the social model of disability for evidence of hope and hopelessness. Categories of hope and hopelessness delineated in this research include hope/despair for a cure, hope/despair for social inclusion and involvement, hope/despair related to voice (including being heard and taken seriously), hope/despair related to supports, hope/despair related to personal development, control, and survival, and other evidence of hope and hopelessness. An examination of how political hope expressed within these narratives contributes to the collective hope of people with dementia is included, as well as an exploration of implications for the larger disability rights movement.
Open Access
Madness, Monstrosity and Grievability in Canadian Media Representations of Ashley Smith
(2015-12-08) Reid, Amber; Halifax, Nancy; Haller, Beth
Using a sample of six articles from Canadian News sources, this paper looks at how the death of nineteen-year-old Ashley Smith at the Grand Valley Prison for Women near Kitchener Waterloo was framed by the Canadian print news media in 2007 (the year of her death) and between 2012-2015 when her mother Coralee Smith attempted (and eventually succeeded in) having the initial ruling of suicide overturned by a jury who found Smith died by homicide. I attend to whether themes of monstrosity, grievability, and mental illness were present in media coverage of the case affecting the extent to which Ashley is framed as a person whose life and death are of consequence. The terms, images, and frames used by the media to describe Smith have the capacity to participate in infantilizing, Othering, and discounting the validity of Smith’s suffering within the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) (Wahl 343). Conversely, the media also has the capacity to emphasize the systemic devaluation of criminalized and incarcerated people, thereby calling not only on state actors, but also on readers to consider how we are implicated in the categorization of some lives as worthy of care during life and grievable in death, and others as threatening and dangerous being in life, and ungrievable in death (Cohen Visions 5-6; Baun 31).
Open Access
Intersections of War and Disability: The Context of Disabled Tamil Women in Sri Lanka
(2016-06-15) Raveendran, Vinthika; Gorman, Rachel; Reaume, Geoffrey
In the foreground of economic development, Sri Lanka has been commended for its strong economic growth, despite its civil war. However, beneath that lies a different picture where inequalities are created and exacerbated by patterns of discrimination and unequal treatment among Sri Lanka’s most vulnerable population. In keeping with a Critical Disability Studies approach, this Major Research Paper aims to shed light on the current state of disablement among Tamil women with disabilities in Sri Lanka and seeks to understand their position in society, where they are triply marginalized by a number of factors. These factors such as gendered-caste discrimination, life course position, social location, involuntary migration, displacement through civil war and marginalization intersect to create barriers for disabled Tamil women, which ultimately leaves them in a most disadvantaged position. Additionally, this paper discusses the ramifications of Sri Lanka’s civil war and its connection with mental health, war, and disability. Lastly, it investigates the international bodies such as United Nations, World Health Organization, and United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and their role in dismantling disabilities in Sri Lanka. In doing so, it aims to provide a thorough investigation into these women’s lives and to look at lived experience of disabled women from Northern part of Sri Lanka.
Open Access
Awakening Hope: A Critical Analysis of the Stigmatization of Children with Disabilities in Nigerian Families and Communities
(2016-06-16) Imade, Victor; Gorman, Rachel; Reaume, Geoffrey
This Major Research Paper (MRP) in York University’s graduate program in Critical Disability Studies (CDS) explores the stigmatization and marginalization imposed on Nigerian-Canadian children living in Canada. Canada has attempted to recognize the rights of people with disabilities, but people with disabilities still face discrimination and substantive barriers. For many Nigerian families living in Canada, as with some other Canadian families, when a child is diagnosed as having a disability the entire family faces immediate stigmatization and rejection within the local community. This problem may be greater for Nigerian families living in Nigeria but this MRP focuses primarily on the issue within Canada’s borders. Aspects of this MRP are applicable to anyone living with a disability but it focuses primarily on Nigeria-Canadian children and families. Utilizing a multilayered methodological approach that is auto-ethnographic, historical and comparative, this MRP explores the disabling impacts of the stigmatization and marginalization that are imposed on Nigeria-Canadian children with disabilities living in Canada. The auto-ethnographic component of this MRP is based on a narrative of the author’s personal experiences of disability in order to expose a variety of barriers that impede the ability of people with disabilities to participate in an inclusive environment, institutions and communities. On the basis the author’s personal experience working with Nigerian families having children with disabilities, it is evident that some Nigerian immigrants bring attitudes of shame and rejection towards people with disabilities with them when they migrate to Canada. Nigerian families with disabled children also face disabling expressions of racism and exclusion in the Canadian educational, medical and immigration systems. After exploring the multiple factors causing isolation and rejection in the lives of Nigerian children with disabilities, this MRP suggests a number of strategies to foster inclusion and awaken hope in the lives of these children.
Open Access
The Genesis and Evolution of Montreal’s Protestant Institution for Deaf-Mutes, 1870 – 1900
(2016-07-15) Desjourdy, Rachel; Reaume, Geoffrey; Radford, John
In 2015, the Quebec government passed Bill 10: An Act to modify the organization and governance of the health and social service network, in particular by abolishing the regional agencies. Since its adoption, this bill has led to the mass reorganization of services used by people with disabilities in Montreal. One of the organizations affected, presently known as the MAB-Mackay Rehabilitation Centre, traces its roots to the late nineteenth century with the founding of the Protestant Institution for Deaf-Mutes. Using an interdisciplinary critical disability studies and Deaf studies framework, this primary-source archival research will answer two questions: (1) what were circumstances in Montreal’s Anglophone and Protestant community during the nineteenth century that gave rise to this institution?, and (2) how did the Protestant Institution for Deaf Mutes change from 1870-1900? By tracing the genesis and evolution of the institution during the nineteenth century, this project hopes to instigate future research into the lives of the deaf/disabled in Montreal, addressing the absence of Quebec’s disability history from the field of Canadian disability history.
Open Access
A Place to Fit: Examining the Intersection Between Fat Studies and Disability Studies
(2016-08-06) Sherman, Hilary; Reaume, Geoffrey; Rioux, Marcia
This paper provides an overview of the current state of fatphobia in society; attempts to examine the ways in which disability theory can be applicable to a critical study of fatness; and discusses the pros and cons of fatness being incorporated under the disability banner. It contains an examination of the ways fatness is viewed by the media, society, the obesity industry and the medical system. It draws on the theory of Panopticism to examine the processes of self-surveillance and internalized body policing which are carried out by fat people as an extension of fatphobic social discourse. This paper then examines the ways in which fatphobia can be examined or reflected in a variety of disability theories, then draws conclusions regarding the appropriateness of inclusion of fatness as a disability. A brief examination of the parallels which may be drawn between law and legislation regarding disability versus that regarding fatness will also be included.
Open Access
Theorizing Race, Gender, Ability, and Precarity in Early Childhood Education: A Way Forward
(2016-08-09) Kissi, Evelyn; Reaume, Geoffrey; Gorman, Rachel
This paper argues gendered racism, patriarchy, precarity and the ableism/disabelism culture is imbedded in Early Childhood Education training and workplace contexts that simultaneously claim to value and promote inclusivity and diversity. Therefore, this paper seeks to ask inclusion and diversity for who? In this paper, I first showcase the policies and guidelines that govern Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) and students who are entering Early Childhood Education programs in post-secondary institutions. I then draw on the analytical framework of race/racism, gendered, dis/ableism, patriarchy, precarity, to explore how the field of ECE has created an oppressive culture; this section also brings fourth some understanding on inclusion and diversity. I also engage with legal frameworks such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom and the Human Rights Code Ontario to help frame my argument in a policy context. I conclude that discourses of inclusion and diversity are evoked loosely in current training and workplace contexts; and therefore, I argue that awareness of race, gendered racism, dis/ability and precarity should be included in all ECE post-secondary programs. I conclude with some propositions for a way forward for the ECE field, and toward equity for ECE workers
Open Access
Inclusive Education and Disability: Comparing Tertiary Education Accommodations in Metroplolitan Canada and Jamaica
(2016-08-11) Gayle, Daphne; Gilmour, Joan; Reaume, Geoffrey
In this paper a comparison of two universities’ accommodations for disabled students was conducted. This comparison looked at governmental legislation and laws that shape university policies and practices. To understand the utilization of the policies and practices, this paper employed personal perspective or testimonials to garner a better understanding of the intersection of disability and tertiary education in two different countries. The universities selected for this comparative study are York University in Canada and the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, Jamaica. This paper applied a three tier approach - Macro, Meso and Micro level- in analyzing the intersection of disability and education. This paper also looks at the cultural influence on legislation, university policies and the individual experience. Through this research a greater depth of understanding of how these accommodation guidelines intersect with disability services was achieved.
Open Access
Harry Potter, Special Education, and the Canadian Supreme Court: A Comparative Legal and Literary Analysis
(2016-08-12) Richmond, Aaron; viva davis halifax, nancy; Haller, Beth
Children’s and young adult literature open the hearts and minds of their readers to new characters and possibilities. At the same time, literature also has the potential to introduce new ideas and shape readers’ views on respective topics. Given this, one must carefully scrutinize the presented narrative texts in order to ensure that the images and ideas disseminated in them are accurate. This is particularly the case when one discovers characters with disabilities in these monographs because, historically, people with disabilities have been depicted in stereotypical ways. The problem associated with these inappropriate literary representations of disabled people is located when readers of these texts mistake the characterizations of disabled people in literature as authentic representations. This can lead to inaccurate and harmful stereotypes about people with disabilities, stigmatization, and the exclusion of people with disabilities by their peers and communities. In response to the problems associated with the textual representations of people with disabilities in children’s and young adult literature, this paper conducts a comparative legal educational analysis of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series by comparing the Canadian education equality laws with the ones that exist in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series.
Open Access
A Review of Mental Health Care in Canada: Towards a System-Wide Change in Perception and Treatment
(2016-08-12) Nagy, Erica; Reaume, Geoffrey; Wiktorowicz, Mary
The main purpose of this critical research paper was to reflect on a few major issues that exist within the treatment of individuals within the mental health system in Canada today, and to provide recommendations for future research, policy and community development. The main themes that were generated during the literature review included issues related to diagnostic inflation, over-medicalization, the importance of good nutrition, socio-economic status and income inequality, and food insecurity. Through an exhaustive review and critical analysis of the literature using the feminist based standpoint theory, it was determined that mental health diagnosis is on the rise in Canada, and reliance upon the medical model as the primary treatment approach is also increasing. The concerns associated with this increase are exposed in the paper. The paper will discuss the importance of changing the focus to complementary and alternative treatment approaches to treating mental health, such as with nutrition, and the predicted outcome of this change. It was also determined that in order for such a change to occur, there would need to be a shift in the cultural perception of disability and mental health. As such, community providers may consider utilizing a critical approach in their practice and delivery of service, called critical community practice, derived from the field of social work and disability studies.
Open Access
Disability, Citizenship, and Higher Education: Humber College's Community Integration Through Co-Operative Education Program
(2016-08-25) Macri, Susan Elizabeth; Gorman, Rachel; Reaume, Geoffrey
Individuals labelled with intellectual and developmental disabilities encounter a severe lack of choice when it comes to deciding what they will pursue once they are ready to exit high school. For those individuals that are interested in continuing their studies at the post-secondary level, the options are limited or non-existent depending on their perceived disability and/or impairment. In the province of Ontario, the Community Integration through Co-operative Education (CICE) program is one viable possibility for individuals labelled with intellectual and developmental disabilities that are able to meet the program admissions standards. Using a Critical Disability Studies analysis, this paper questions if inclusive higher education can exist within current neoliberal structures. This paper also aims to contextualize how having barrier-free access to post-secondary programs (like the CICE program) impacts substantive citizenship for individuals labelled with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Open Access
The Disabling Impact of Female Genital Mutilation: An Auto-Ethnographic Study of One Woman's Experience of FGM
(2017-03-29) Adodo, Faith; Gorman, Rachel; Reaume, Geoffrey
Drawing upon the author’s personal experience of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), this MRP examines the powerlessness and lack of agency of females who are subjected to this disabling practice. This research project explains the many negative health, emotional and psychological consequences of FGM and describes the difficult task of erasing the deep scars caused by the practice. A major aspect of this MRP is an attempt to draw linkages between the personal impacts of FGM and the social, cultural and religious factors contributing to the perpetuation of the practice in some countries. There is a particular focus on African countries and especially Nigeria. The primary aim of this research project is to demonstrate the need for critical discourses around the disabling impacts of FGM and to promote the implementation of progressive laws and policies that respect the rights of girls and women to control their own bodies. Entrenched patriarchal traditions and religious beliefs uphold FGM, and this MRP discusses the stigmatization, marginalization and barriers imposed on women who refuse to submit to bodily mutilation as a rite of passage to womanhood. The study’s auto-ethnographic research methodology facilitates exploration of the disabling consequences of FGM in areas such as intimacy, marriage, parenting and family life. In order to provide historical context, this auto-ethnographic methodology is supplemented by analysis of the social and historical origins of FGM. Recognizing the intersecting factors that support FGM, the study pays particular attention to the ways in which religion, race and gender combine to marginalize and silence many women in their religious communities. Overall, this research project seeks to explain the historical origins of the practice of FGM, its ongoing disabling impacts on girls and women in some societies, and the need for transformed gender norms that empower the voices and support the self-determination rights of girls and women in deeply patriarchal countries such as Nigerian.
Open Access
Accessorizing Accessibility: Flexible Tools For Your Everyday
(2017-04-10) Ferreirinha, Jason; Halifax, Nancy; Baljko, Melanie
Discussions with friends and other allies in the disability community lead to the discovery of barriers related to one of the modern symbols of accessibility, the Electronic Door Opener (EDO). As such my research became concerned with physical accessibility to and through the built environment. To develop a greater understanding of the concern this project initiated a thorough audit of EDOs by reviewing their functionality in the built environment with respect to peoples’ bodies. Round table discussions between community members (who identified as being a part of, or allied with the disability community) revealed a range of concerns regarding EDO remotes. Major concerns included how the remote would affect privacy, social stigma, personal security and the risk for abuse. Despite some differences, the discussion satisfied most group concerns and showed strong evidence that the concept could improve environmental access.
Open Access
Feline (R)Evolution
(2017-04-25) Liang, Bridget; Halifax, Nancy; Karpinski, Eva
Intersectionality is a core theory and practice for both activists and academics interested in social justice. From its roots articulating the unique experience that black women faced in comparison to the mono identity marginalized experiences of being black or a woman. Intersectionality has expanded to include experiences of queerness, disability, fat, class, religion, transness, and a host of other identity experiences. With so many different axis’ of oppression, articulating the complexities of multiply marginalized experiences becomes difficult. In this paper, I argue in favour of using arts-based research methods, particularly storytelling as a way to convey this complexity. Through telling stories, complex experiences of intersectional experience can be conveyed. Storytelling is an art form and a methodology that is embodied, experienced, and visceral. Storytelling can be and has historically been used argumentatively and as a form of knowledge production. To demonstrate the application of my theorizing, I have written a science-fiction story. Informed by my experiences of being multiply marginalized, I create a world where aliens with feline-like bodies crashland on Earth and are stranded here. They utilize their technology to attempt to change their bodies to pass for human with varying degrees of success. The notion of the alien interests me as someone who experiences numerous forms of marginalization. I regularly feel alienated and alien when interacting with people who do not share my experiences. Being alien I theorize, is an experience that can be read multiple ways creating space for multiply marginalized experiences to be theorized and experienced.
Open Access
Autism And Its Associated Symbols
(2017-04-27) Weaver, Courtney; Halifax, Nancy; Rioux, Marcia
This paper aims to explore four symbols associated with autism: the puzzle piece, umbrella, jigsaw puzzle ribbon, and the three coloured rainbow. Western secular societal assumptions regarding autism will be analysed in each symbol. This will be accomplished via a semiological critical visual methodology that will involve taking into account each symbol’s site of creation, the materials used, their surrounding socio-historical discourses, and their colours and shapes. Given that there is currently an Autism Awareness Month and Day in which one or more of these symbols are present, it is important to understand what is being conveyed about autism to national and international audiences. This paper will ultimately reveal that there needs to be more consistent clarification of symbol meanings, especially in regards to colours, and that commendatory alternate symbols can be associated with autism for the future.
Open Access
"The Next Stop is…Inaccessible. Inaccesible Stop." GTHA Transit System Maps Coded for Accessibility
(2017-06-16) Kierans, Patricia; Gorman, Rachel; Rious, Marcia
This thesis bridges a vital gap in accessible transit information across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), by providing customized Google Maps whose transit stops are filtered according to accessibility. The current lack of such maps among the agencies was examined through three vital frameworks: the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People (CRPD), and Diller’s Civil Rights Model. After careful analysis, the AODA proved to have no requirements regarding the publishing of accessibility information. The AODA’s Transportation Standard is criticized by the Ontario Human Rights Code as violating human rights standards, and making no steps forward to positively integrate people with disabilities into society. The CRPD‘s requirements that every signing nation must provide accessible environments, and access to information about accessibility, goes further to include a directive to constantly continue improving accessibility. Diller’s Civil Rights Model sinks the case of the GTHA’s transit agencies even further: his model lays the responsibility to provide equal access on individual corporations themselves, as well as the government. It is clear, via these frameworks, that the GTHA’s transit agencies have not done enough to ensure equality of access to accessibility information, although they may meet the AODA’s general transportation requirements. It was a critical oversight of the AODA that no requirement for the communication of accessible transportation information was included. Pressure must be put on these transit agencies, as well as the provincial government, to modify their existing transit maps to include the accessibility of transit stops, or to create new maps that specifically highlight accessibility information. It is my intent that this research should make a positive contribution to this process.
Open Access
A Stitch in Time: Mourning the Unnamed
(2017-08-08) Collins, Kim; Halifax, Nancy; White, Kimberley
This project uses archival material and artistic production to think through the institutionalization of people labeled with intellectual disabilities, forced textile labour and those who remain unnamed in both records and in death. It asks us to question how we can mourn for those we cannot name. This project begins with two archival records. One a yearly Annual Report of the Orillia Asylum for Idiots written in 1887, the other a 1928 Industrial Training document for the Ontario Hospital School Orillia. Both documents relate the history of Huronia Regional Centre, though neither bore its name. It aims to employ art to tell stories that lawsuits and policy can not; that art as remembrance, as mourning, as responsibility, will allow us to mourn those we cannot name.
Open Access
Immigrants, Immigration and Disability in Canada
(2017-08-09) Ahmed, Saifuddin; Reaume, Geoffrey; Klassen, Thomas
This MRP focuses on the obstacles faced by immigrants with disabilities when they try to gain admission into Canada and during the struggle to settle and integrate for those who do gain admission. Some disabled immigrants are considered inadmissible because of what are defined as “excessive burdens” on state economic resources that impose costs on taxpayers and Canadian healthcare services. Further, individual immigrants and their families have traditional values and cultural norms that make it difficult to integrate into mainstream Canadian society, imposing further disability. This study provides a critical analysis of the ways in which Canada’s immigration policies have exploited and marginalized immigrants with disabilities in Canadian society. It shows that these exclusionary practices contradict Canada’s multiculturalism and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This MRP also investigates immigrant settlement issues related to education, work and social relations, and shows how immigrants are forced to rely on friends, co-workers and family ties in order to survive in Canadian society. In addition, it describes how Canada’s family reunification policies and legislation have historically imposed exclusion on immigrant families with members who have disabilities, and continue to do so. Overall, this MRP emphasizes how Canadian immigration policies continue to focus narrowly on economic factors and argues in favour of a new immigration policy regime based on human rights, equality rights and the ideal of global citizenship rights.
Open Access
Unworthy of Space - An Investigation of Hegemonic Ideologies Within the Treatment of People with Physical Disabilities and Poverty-Stricken Individuals
(2017-08-18) Ellerby, Kristin; Reaume, Geoffrey; Gilmour, Joan
This paper will engage in an investigation of the socio-spatial oppression experienced by people with physical disabilities (PWPD), and the poverty-stricken populace in Ontario. We will begin by exploring the histories of both aforementioned groups with the intention of ascertaining when, and for what reasons societal exclusion and oppression commenced. We will continue on to an examination of the manner in which disability and poverty have been perceived and accounted for within Canadian, and more specifically, Ontario law. Then an investigation of the capitalist ideologies that are evidently present in the enactment of both the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), and the Ontario Safe Streets Act (OSSA), that function to socially, politically, and economically oppress both groups to the benefit of the hegemonic will take place. We will then examine the socio-spatial neglect experienced by PWPD, and individuals living in poverty, and the manner in which the AODA and the OSSA have been complicit in the marginality experienced by both groups. In comparing the societal exclusion of both, while simultaneously examining the ideologies used to justify such treatment, this paper intends to make apparent the numerous similarities in the hegemonic oppression experienced by the aforesaid groups, and posit that engaging in activism as a collective may assist in obtaining equality.
Open Access
'The Supports Exist - Why Can't We Access Them?' : Unveiling the Barriers in Accessing Home Care Services for the Unpaid Caregivers of Children With Medically Complex Needs In Ontario
(2017-08-18) Mora Severino, Samadhi; Ahmad, Farah; Rioux, Marcia
Existing research, and my personal experiences and observations indicate that caring for a child with medically complex needs without formal support causes caregiver burnout. An additional layer of complexity relates to the duality of being both parent and caregiver, and societies’ failure to understand how these intersect to cause undue burden on parents. The primary aim of the Major Research Paper is to examine why and how caregivers are facing these barriers in accessing home care supports in Ontario, along with the related health implications for children for their unpaid caregivers. This research is informed by the principles of critical social theory and emancipatory approaches along with human rights and intersectionality lenses. My comprehensive review of human rights frameworks demonstrated that rights to access home care supports are unequivocally established in international, national and provincial laws and conventions. In contrast, the qualitative interviews with ten caregivers of children with medically complex needs demonstrated several rights violations when accessing home care supports. The key findings include: negative impacts to caregivers’ health due to difficulty accessing home care supports; withholding information resulted in unpaid caregivers being unable to trust CCAC staff; and the financial impacts of not having access to home care. Based on participant interviews, changes to the home care system need to include a proactive not reactive approach, and an emphasis on creating partnerships with unpaid caregivers in policy creation.