Major Research Papers - Critical Disability Studies

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“Doc-Aganda”: Medical Tv Shows & Medical Epistemic Authority
(2024-08-15) Alcalde Lawton, Natasha
This research paper consists of a critical examination of the medical TV show in relation to medical epistemic and cultural authority. In weaving together the histories of the genre and modern medicine, it reveals the interconnected nature of medical TV shows and medicine in the real world. In this project, literary disability studies are combined with media and cultural disability studies, television studies, and the medical humanities in order to expose the ideological ways illness, disability, health and healthcare are portrayed by the modern medical TV show. By paying particular attention to the representation of disability and illness in medical TV shows, this study exposes how the shows reinforce and uphold medical epistemic authority, and by extension the medical model and ableism. Using specific tropes of representation and close reading as a methodology to examine episodes of ER and Grey’s Anatomy, this paper emphasizes the ways these shows devalue disabled embodiment and uphold mainstream liberal capitalistic values. These tropes include freakery and medical scientific progress; didacticism and the limits of the doctor centred formula; and disabled embodiment as untrustworthy/adversary to doctors.
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The Healthy Immigrant Effect in Canada: Understandings of Debility: A Literature Review
(2024-08-13) Abdel Kader, Waad ; Gorman, Rachel Da Silveira; El Morr, Christo
Immigrants generally start with better-than-average health at the time of their immigrant application and arrival to Canada. This is done through a careful and precise process that rules out disability. Many later faced disabling social determinants of health, such as poor housing, difficulty navigating the education system, precarious working environments, and lack of social support networks. Immigrants are among the most vulnerable members of society, facing xenophobia, judgment, discrimination, and otherness (Dada, 2022). Although it is masked with welcoming faces and implicit suggestions that they are “lucky” to be given a chance to immigrate to Canada and start a new life for themselves. The truth is that once they have immigrated, the journey is incomplete; it is only the start of a new, complex and exhausting journey (Dada, 2022). Most immigrants coming to Canada are here to start families or smaller families looking for new opportunities. Immigrant parents often face challenges adjusting to a new system, supporting their children through school systems that are foreign to them, working to make ends meet and adjusting to a new environment where they are separated and distanced from their families, the majority moving from collectivistic cultures into a more individualistic atmosphere that triggers a culture shock. How are current health policies enough to support the journey post-immigration? What support is available to immigrants, and how can they be better met? From a health policy point of view, many chronic health conditions can be avoided or prevented through health policy implementations and access to healthcare. Immigrants often face language barriers when moving to Canada, and that can impact navigating healthcare settings and school systems. Immigrants are often not aware of mental health and health resources that can be available to them, often leading them to suffer on their own.
Open Access
Evolving Support Needs in Small Option Homes in Nova Scotia: Policy Implications on Persons with Intellectual Disabilities
(2024-08-16) Dunn, Hannah E.; Burghardt, Madeline; Bernasky, Tammy
Recent legal events in Nova Scotia (NS) prompted the examination and reform of the provincial Disability Support Program (DSP). This initiative, coupled with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, revealed devastating impacts of policy structures on persons labelled with intellectual disabilities (PWID). The present study examines how Nova Scotia Disability Support Program policies impact persons with intellectual disabilities experiencing increasing support needs while living in small option homes. Existing research focuses on group home settings, with nothing specific to NS, nor DSP policies. Guided by the theoretical frameworks of critical disability theory and intersectionality, and the analytical frameworks of critical policy analysis and Intersectionality-Based Policy Analysis (Hankivsky et al., 2014), a text-based policy analysis was conducted on DSP policies. The potential lived impacts of identified themes from the analysis were illuminated through two composite stories. The analysis revealed themes of medicalization, dis/empowerment, and colonial structures. These themes were situated within larger contexts of institutional ideologies, static beliefs about PWID, and intersectional complexities of accessing DSP supports. This study demonstrated the importance of connecting policy with lived impact during policy reform. Future research should further investigate how varied identities impact how PWID access DSP supports. Future policy reform must center lived experience throughout the entire process, and center the question “who am I impacting, and how?” throughout each point of change. Keywords: Intellectual Disability, Disability Support Program, Small Option Home (SOH), Human Rights Remedy, Support Needs, Ageing in Place, Intersectional
Open Access
What if There was Never Once Upon a Time But an “Unhinged Representation of the Disabled Womanhood Journey?
(2024-08-12) Deoni, Natasha; Reaume, Geoffrey; Vorstermans, Jessica
The Walt Disney Company released its first feature animated film in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; little to their surprise, this film initiated the princess phenomenon (Muir, 2023, p.2). The Disney Princess films portray two representations of females: the naive, young, beautiful princess and the older, cruel, feared by all, independent villain. Using Critical Disability Studies, Feminist and Feminist Disability Studies paradigms will analyze how the ideology of cure is embedded in the Princess and Villain’s journey to overcome the curses cast upon them and change the trajectory of their current life. The implications of the representations for the Princess and Villain journey to disabled womanhood and if there has been a progression in the depiction of disability and femineity in the Disney Princess animated films. A mixed method was used to uncover the findings for the qualitative study: reflective thematic analysis and autoethnography.
Open Access
Exploring the (In)accessibility of Ontario Law Schools: A Distant Dream for Candidates with Disabilities
(2024-08-13) Omar, Alana; Vorstermans, Jessica; Malhotra, Ravi
This Major Research Paper (MRP) will investigate Ontario law schools’ current admissions policies which create barriers for candidates with disabilities to be granted admission and pursue a career in law. Through the mystification of application requirements in the “Access” category of admissions, the lack of clarity around admissions criteria in comparison to other application categories falls short. Via the use of vague language on admissions websites, a limited mode of expression for personal interest statements within the application itself, and an inequitable focus on performative measures of assessment (i.e. Law School Admissions Test scores, GPA, extracurriculars), admissions committees claim to the application of a holistic approach to evaluation is extremely misleading, adhering to a selection process that does not equitably reflect a candidate's strengths and suitability as a law student. In addition to this, candidates that are selected and become students, carry an immense amount of pressure to prove they are worthy, through expectations to prove their success at the expense of their disability (Dolmage, 2017). Through evaluating current admission policies and providing recommendations to revise current ableist processes for future lawyers with disabilities, my aim in conducting this research will be threefold; using a literature review to understand the experiences of current law students with disabilities; to further explore the challenges candidates with disabilities face in accessing Ontario law schools using an autoethnography detailing my own experience as an applicant in the Access category. The aim of the secondary data analysis is to disentangle the paradox of an inaccessible Access category of admissions. Ultimately, the basis of this analysis will emphasize the need to rework admissions processes to reflect the meaningful use of various admissions categories that supports intersectional identities, specifically the consistent inclusion of an Access category.
Open Access
Dreaming Peer Support Futures
(2023-08) Prowse, Calvin; da Silveira Gorman, Rachel; viva davis halifax, nancy
Drawing on practices of diffractive reading supported by zine-making methods, throughout this major research paper I explore the question: “what could a lens of futurity offer the world of consumer/survivor peer support?” In Chapter 1, I engage in a theoretical dialogue between the realm of peer support and notions of futurity to demonstrate the benefits and alignment of a futural (re)turn within the peer support sector, setting the stage for the rest of my analysis. In Chapter 2, I explicate the ways – the whys and hows – that peer supporters are exploited by the psychiatric industrial complex under neoliberal rule, grounded in a historical approach that draws on the frameworks of confluence (Joseph, 2015) and neuroliberalism (Moussa, 2019) so that we may “learn from the past” (Butler, 2000, p. 166) in order to better anticipate the future. In Chapter 3, I explore how the peer support sector is itself implicated in upholding systems of oppression (white supremacy, Western dominance, colonization, and colonialism) by troubling the “peer support origin story” and the current demographics of the field, as well as identifying what futures are currently in construction. Lastly, in Chapter 4, I explore how we can draw on the lessons of funga and flora to both locate ourselves within the present and dream peer support futures beyond the limits of realism.
Open Access
Embodied Worlds of Collective Love: Critically Re-Turning Liberation in My Burmese Disabled Poetry
(2023-08) Yang, Yema; da Silveira Gorman, Rachel; viva davis halifax, nancy
In the West, the main options for approaching disability are usually as follows: attempt to fix your disability through medical solutions or take on a disability identity to access communities, resources, and beliefs that are alternative from the medical model. However, these limited options mean many are not only excluded from disability dialogue altogether, but also cannot access care, community, or agency in the same way—especially if they cannot readily mesh with white, Western, and individualistic ways of thinking. This means that Indigenous, Black, Brown, transnational, and immigrant communities and beyond are often erased, missing, and neglected in disability discourse. And yet we are here anyway, disabled and debilitated in more ways than one, regardless of whether we’ve been able to access white Western care around disability. In my major research paper, I use my intersecting disabled Burmese experiences to highlight, honor, and nurture those non-Western ways of knowing and caring. I explore structural and relational perspectives of disability to move beyond identity-based disability, centering non-Western marginalized experiences and navigations of disability. As such, I excavate how communal love enables Burmese disabled existences and occasions of liberation. Using myself as a sample, I engage in critical autoethnographic poetic inquiry and a diffractive lens as a methodology for reflecting and honoring the fruition of my Burmese disabled self as it is born from communities. Ultimately, I inquire how the collectively-created self can create and house an intimate and political space of communal love to foster existence and collective liberation with others.
Open Access
Thinking/Feeling Betwixt: Towards an Integrated Model of Disability & Mad Justice, Food Justice, and Harm Reduction
(2023-08) Woolf, Emunah; davis halifax, nancy viva; Stiegman, Martha
This Major Research Paper (MRP) offers a reflexive exploration at the intersection of Disability and Mad Justice (DMJ), Food Justice (FJ), and Harm Reduction (HR). While it is a step towards an integrated framework, it does not propose a tangible theory or model at its end. Rather, it offers a selection of thoughts, feelings, visuals, theories, frameworks, models, and methods that I encountered through this exploration. Each segment will introduce an area of thinking/feeling/writing and connect it into this intersectional area of inquiry. This thesis thus is a collage of others' work, to whom I am indebted, interspersed with my own thinking.
Open Access
Mental Health Impact of Canadian Job Requirements and Recruitment Practices on Nigerian and African Professionals Transitioning into the Canadian Workspace
(2023-10-10) Nwandu, Iwebunakiti; Raphael, Dennis; Vorstermans, Jessica
Highly skilled Nigerian/African professionals who have immigrated to Canada through the express entry or other economic class program experience a significant level of discounting of their foreign-acquired skills and credentials as they attempt to transition into the Canadian workspace. The discounting of their skills and credentials often occurs during the job recruitment processes and/or as a result of Canadian job requirements (or licensing requirements for regulated professions) and recruitment practices that place outsize importance on Canadian work experience over their foreign-acquired work experience, creating a catch-22 situation where highly skilled Nigerian/African immigrants need a job in Canada to gain Canadian work experience but cannot access jobs that match their foreign acquired work experience without a Canadian job experience. Unfortunately, this situation forces them to either accept low/entry-level positions in their field of expertise (if available) or work in low-paying precarious jobs that they are overqualified or over-skilled for and unrelated to their expertise as they transition into the Canadian workspace. Studies have shown that African and Asian skilled immigrants experience the most severe devaluation of their foreign-acquired academic qualifications and trainings, and black African immigrants face increased vulnerability and are more likely to experience skill discounting, underemployment, discrimination, and lower income irrespective of their high human capital net worth (Buzdugan and Halli, 2009; DeSilva, 1997; Pendakur, 2000; Li, 2001, Batalova et al., 2016; Borch and Corra, 2010; Showers, 2015; Zong and Batalova, 2015) causing social disablement that results in depression, anxiety, frustration and other mental health distresses as they work to overcome these challenges to their socioeconomic integration in Canada. Social exclusion is an important social determinant of mental health and accounts for increased signs of anxiety, depression, and psychological distress among African immigrants. Studies have indicated that black people are the most disadvantaged group facing continuously high levels of negative racial and ethnic stereotyping, and few research reported concerns with depression and psychological distress during the acculturation of African immigrants (Akinsulure-Smith, 2017; Eguakun, 2020; Sellers et al., 2006; Venters et al., 2011, Sherinah et al., 2021). This research work aims to examine the mental health impact of Canadian job requirements and recruitment practices on Nigerian and African professionals transitioning into the Canadian workspace and seeks to provide answers to the research question, “How do Canadian job requirements and recruitment practices discriminate against Nigerian and African professionals, and put them in a disadvantageous position, causing depression and mental health distress as they transition to the Canadian workspace? To achieve this, ten (10) highly skilled Nigerian professionals who immigrated to Canada through the economic class immigration programs were interviewed, and their interviews were transcribed and analyzed. The results of the analyses of the transcribed interviews, among other revelations, revealed a persistent and significant level of discrimination and discounting of the foreign-acquired credentials, trainings, and skills of the participants and showed a disconnect between the employers, licensing bodies and Canadian immigration office.
Open Access
Dreaming Peer Support Futures
(2023-08) Prowse, Calvin; da Silveira Gorman, Rachel; halifax, nancy viva davis
Drawing on practices of diffractive reading supported by zine-making methods, throughout this major research paper I explore the question: “what could a lens of futurity offer the discipline of consumer/survivor peer support?” In Chapter 1, I engage in a theoretical dialogue between the realm of peer support and notions of futurity to demonstrate the benefits and alignment of a futural (re)turn within the peer support sector, setting the stage for the rest of my analysis. In Chapter 2, I explicate the ways – the whys and hows – that peer supporters are exploited by the psychiatric industrial complex under neoliberal rule, grounded in a historical approach that draws on the frameworks of confluence (Joseph, 2015) and neuroliberalism (Moussa, 2019) so that we may “learn from the past” (Butler, 2000, p. 166) in order to better anticipate the future. In Chapter 3, I explore how the peer support sector is itself implicated in upholding systems of oppression (white supremacy, Western dominance, colonization, and colonialism) by troubling the “peer support origin story” and the current demographics of the field, as well as identifying what futures are currently in construction. Lastly, in Chapter 4, I explore how we can draw on the lessons of funga and flora to both locate ourselves within the present and dream peer support futures beyond the limits of realism.
Open Access
Transnational Narratives of Access: Visually Impaired Activists in Canada and Cuba in Conversation
(2023-08) Pike, Georgia Meredith; Vorstermans, Jessica; da Silveira Gorman, Rachel
Open Access
Reimagining Psychosis: The Meaning-Making of Lived Psychotic Experiences
(2023-08) McConnell, Madison; Reaume, Geoffrey; da Silveira Gorman, Rachel
Tracing the lines between intersectional, marginalized Mad bodies, I illustrate a picture of psychotic Madness across borders, boundaries, and times, as well as the struggles of living this kind of existence while butting heads with Western psychiatry. Using feminist autotheory as a methodology, I weave my experiences with psychosis into a greater tapestry of what it means to be unwell, positing my own theories about how psychosis operates. Within my theorizing, I explore how ‘symptoms’ of psychotic ‘illness’ may be reconceptualized as coping mechanisms for survival in the midst of traumas and stressors. For example, some individuals develop ‘delusions,’ also known in less-clinical settings as strong beliefs, to contextualize their sensory-perceptual intrusions, such as hearing voices. Furthermore, I explore three case studies of different experiences with psychosis from mothers with postpartum psychosis to migrants and refugees with schizophrenia, questioning the nature of how these ‘illnesses’ are constructed, if they are even ‘illnesses’ at all. I dream of more holistic ways to think about and work with psychotic individuals, privileging their opinions and unravelling their stories of injustice and misrepresentation. Finally, I put forth alternatives to the biomedical treatments found in Western psychiatry, focussing instead on social support, such as peer support networks or affirming and validating one’s reality.
Open Access
Gender in Autistic Late-Diagnosis Narratives
(2023-07) Ellis, Kate; Nielsen, Emilia; Pyne, Jake
In recent years, the discussion of how gender impacts autism diagnosis has been popular in both academic and lay contexts, such as social media. In psychology, the idea of the Female Autism Phenotype has particularly caught the attention of researchers as a possible explanation for why autistic women and girls are diagnosed later. However, studies related to gender and late autism diagnosis often do not consider how autistic adults personally perceive this link. Using thematic analysis, this study analyzes the blogs of late-diagnosed autistic adults to understand whether and how these individuals perceive a link between their gender and their timing of diagnosis. Critical discourse analysis is also used to understand how understandings of autism, group affiliations, and other factors may influence these perceptions. The study found that while the Female Autism Phenotype and similar theories have been favoured by bloggers in years past, they have not been regularly discussed by late-diagnosed bloggers in recent years. This indicates that autism researchers who focus on gender’s role in late-diagnosis may not be in line with autistic community priorities regarding autism research.
Open Access
Compulsory Fitness and Nation Building: Anti-Fat Bias in Canadian Human Rights Law and Physical Education Curriculum
(2023) DiGiammarino, Olivia; da Silveira-Gorman, Rachel
This Major Research Paper (MRP) investigates the roots of anti-fat bias in Physical Education. Divided into three distinct chapters, this MRP begins by outlining current themes and understanding related to fat-bias in Physical Education through a scoping review of available academic literature. With the consideration that the Canadian public education system is funded by and overseen by the provincial government, the second chapter considers how fat discrimination is understood in the context of legal discrimination in Canada in an effort to better understand the vulnerability that students are subjected to when discriminated against in an educational setting. The last chapter of this MRP explores the grade 9 Physical Education curriculum for the 10 Canadian provinces through open-coding of anti-fat bias and neoliberal/citizenship rhetoric.
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
Disabling Accessing: Barriers to Eye Gaze Technology for Students with Disabilities
(2020-08) Sam, Alexander; Parekh, Gillian; da Silveira Gorman, Rachel
This MRP is intended as a resource for parents, educators and support workers to identify systematic, financial, and training barriers for students. The research takes readers through Federal (i.e. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms) and provincial legislation (i.e. Education Act [1990], Ontario Human Rights Code, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disability Act [2005]), disability support programs (i.e. ADP and SEA), as well as education policy (i.e. TDSB Accessibility Policy P069, TDSB Equity Policy P037, TDSB Special Education Plan [2017]) to highlight the government policy responses to disability in Canada and outlines how access to Eye Gaze technology encounters numerous barriers. The goal is to demonstrate the need for critical discourse focusing on the connection between historical discrimination and biases embedded in Canadian policy,and their role in perpetuating barriers to accessing assistive technology for students with disabilities. The Toronto District School Board is used as the setting, while Tobii Dynavox is the Eye Gaze technology vendor under review for analyzing how policy, programs and institutional practices enable or disable access for prospective students.Theoretical DiscussionAn analysis of the scientific (i.e. Biomedical, Functional) and social models of disability (i.e. Environmental, Human Rights) is used to illustrate how each perspective shapes understandings of disability differently, then moves to examining the dominant disability perspective guiding legislation, policy and programs affecting persons with disabilities in Canada. Both a human rights approach todisability and critical policy frameworks are used to analyze the context within which social and education policies are entrenched and administered in Canadian society, contributing to systematic, financial, procedural, and training barriers to accessingEye Gaze technology. ConclusionThe MRP concludes that scientific and biomedical models of disability have historically shaped government policy responses to disability and continue to do so today. Canadian policy and programs meant to facilitate access to Eye Gaze technology are guided by scientific understandings of disability, which embed systematic, proceduraland training barriers into policy programs that are supposed to provide funding support to overcome financial barriers. A list of 10 classroom recommendations for barrier free access to Eye Gaze technology is presented using the social model approach, to help parents, educators and support workers identify and eliminate obstacles for users. The MRP ends with a call for further discussion and scholarship of Eye Gaze technology in classrooms, which provides readers with 6 recommended areas of Eye Gaze technology research.
Open Access
Embracing Ambiguity: Moving Toward Madness and Death in Performance
(2020-08) Sabada, SK; da Silveira Gorman, Rachel; Mitchell, Allyson
This MRP comprises two inter-related papers examining the intimacies of death and dying and their relationship to madness through performance.The first paper focuses on the use of alternate reality games (ARGs) as a medium of performance. In particular, through the exploration of my own ARG, I discuss the possibilities ARGs have for madness and death.I suggest that this format, unlike other mediums, has distinct features that would benefit mad and disabled artists intheir explorations of madness and disability. Through the articulation of the intimacies of death and dying and the abject, this paper also seeks to explore the further significance of their conceptual applications in discussions pertaining to mad subjectivity. The secondpaper seeks to examine the complex relationships between death, madness and performance through the invocation of the Intimacies of Death and Dying and the theatrical use of the Abject. This paper asks: What is it about the act of being alive, that qualifies us for being embodied subjects? Further, what does it mean for those of us whose embodiments are conditional?Through navigating these relationships, this paper tentatively examines what exploring these relationships might mean for mad subjectivities and dead embodiments in the context of performance.
Open Access
The Creation of Barriers and Isolation for Seniors Through the Increased Societal Dependence of Technology During the COVID-19 Pandemic
(2021-09-28) Li, Jessica; Raume, Geoffrey; Ahmad, Farah
Research done in the past on senior technology and of the newer research done on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic provides deeper insights into the functional, structural, interpersonal, and intrapersonal barriers that seniors face when dealing with technology. Not only have devices and platforms not been made user-friendly for seniors with age-related declines, but the continuous attempts to push seniors intousingthe newest technologies have only built-up fear, anxiety and negative attitudes in seniors. Both society and seniors themselves need to address the ageist assumptions that they have about the limitations and behaviours associated with old age. The results and suggestions from this research will further advance the pre-existing research and add a relevant COVID-19 lens. Hopefully, it will also advance the field of critical disability scholarship and draw more attention to the discrimination seniors face because of their age.
Open Access
‘Broken Trust’ –A critical policy analysis of the difficulties faced by disabled intergenerational families seeking education and accommodation
(2021-08-26) Lincoln, J N; da Silveira Gorman, Rachel; Parekh, Gillian
As a result of the presence of racialized, gendered, and socio-economic bias within educational policies intended to assist disabled individuals, many students and their families often encounter abusive and negative accommodation experiences. These failures are particularly damaging during the transition out of high school and even more so within post secondary institutions themselves.Employing the educational policy analysis model created by Diem, Young, Wilton, Mansfield, and Lee (2014) in their paper entitled “The intellectual landscape of critical policy analysis” this major research paper explores several policies which impact students during these transition periods and highlights the failures that they repeatedly encounter. The personal story of the author is also woven into the analysis to show that there is a human side of this experience which must be included to truly expose the brutal nature of these policy failures. It is shown throughout that even though policy is crafted with rhetoric that may seem beneficial to the disabled recipient, the intent is often one of control, suppression, and reinforcement of the aforementioned negative biases.
Open Access
Interrogating Safeguards Under the Mental Health Act: Criticizing the Decision in Thompson and Empowerment Council v. Ontario (2013): Towards an Alternative Understanding of Psychiatric Disability From the Perspectives of Critical Disability Theories and Crispitemology
(2021-11) Han, Yoonmee; da Silveira Gorman, Rachel; Vorstermans, Jessica