Disability Rhetoric

A) My current understanding of disability studies: The completion of this Composite Essay has brought me to consider what I know at this time about disability studies, based on my three weeks as a student in ENG 401. This far into our course, I understand disability studies to be the academic interpretation of disability, especially in play with society, beginning with the principle that disability exists as a social construct and not a physical condition. A disability may stem from various physical or mental impairments, but those do not inherently make someone disabled. So, disability studies would strive as a cause to re-educate the public through disability awareness, and establish more equitable systems in society for those who are disabled.  Personally, I subscribe to the social model of disability, which proposes that disability arises from social barriers as opposed to physical impairments. I resonated with the model after reading the chapter “Reassigning Meaning” by Simi Linton from Claiming Disability, one of our Week One assigned texts. Something I find particularly relevant to my understanding of disability studies from this chapter is the way Linton regards disability terminologies, which she claims “have been used to arrange people in ways that are socially and economically convenient to the society” (Linton 9-10), and this precedes even their definitions. In my experience, becoming aware that American society is not inherently designed to accommodate disability, at first, carries a charge of blame to it, but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where or to whom. While perhaps our lawmakers have work yet to do, I think Linton’s observations illustrate an important point; that disabled people are a minority, and that societies unfortunately trend towards expediency to accommodate the largest number of people with the least resources. So, the minority status of disability is central. I think this helps to get at the definition of disability studies, too, because much of the focus of disability studies is in identifying gaps in accessibility, which helps institutions to avoid oppressing the disabled and lowering their quality of life. On page 12, Linton writes that “a premise of most of the literature in disability studies is that disability is best understood as a marker of identity”, and I like to extend this to disability studies as well, which approaches disability as a highly integrated facet of the self as part of the whole bodymind. So, disability studies, in short, is a sociocultural understanding of disability as a construct, with an emphasis on equity and inclusion and in resistance to the classic, medicalized understanding of disability. Or that’s what I know of the topic so far in this course.

B) What I would like to see more of as the quarter continues: Our class had a discussion last week on what topics we would like to pivot towards as the quarter drags on, and I maintain interest in disability and masking, workplace discrimination, and crip theory. As well, I would appreciate further instruction in rhetoric, because I felt my writing skills get stronger almost immediately after reading the Grant-Davie text. Having the language to articulate someone else’s argument in abstraction from the text has been a massive insight for me. I know that the rhetoric is secondary to the disability studies focus of the course, but it has been what’s stuck with me the most so far. Of course, the three topics below are also things I would like to revisit further into the quarter.

C) Three concepts with significance to me thus far: For the third part of this composite piece, I’ve selected three topics that have been on my mind, and in my journal, recurrently this quarter. I’m going to discuss dependency, access, and accommodation, because I think these topics are similar in a lot of ways, but distinct, and they identify some of the social ‘rubs’ of disability. The topics are highly interconnected in the adult sphere of disabled life: for example, graditations of dependence requiring improved accessibility and accommodation to manage, improving access helping to manage dependency, and accommodations which improve access in society. Social opinion is heavily enforced by these topics, which are often subject to public scrutiny, as there’s usually a democratic process to expanding access/accommodation using public funds. I am interested in the way each topic feeds into the next, and with my interest in theory, have been priority topics for me thus far in the course.

Concept one: Dependency

I’ll start with dependency, which I view as one part of disability that society is not capable of ignoring, and has an obligation not to dismiss. Unfortunately, the responsibilities of providing economic support, additional needed care or technology to those who would require them has poisoned society’s understanding of dependence as anything other than a social problem. Eva Feder Kettay, who authored the chapter “Dependency” from Keywords for Disability Studies, wrote that many scholars of disability acknowledge, contrary to this, that “what undermines the ability of disabled people to flourish is the view that being self-sufficient, self-reliant, and self determining is the norm, and the only desirable state of persons in a liberal society” (Kettay 54). Dependency isn’t a lack of independence; rather a state of recurrent need for assistance in some way. Viewing those who are dependent as a sunk cost invites the incorrect assertions that teaching independence “ultimately saves public expenditures because the provisions sought are less costly” (Kettay 57). Dependency is a relationship which can be managed, and managing dependency allows those needing care to “select and optimize the opportunities that such acknowledgment makes possible”, growing synergistically with those involved in their care to where both parties feel respected and understood (Kettay 58). I wanted to address dependency first because dependency seems to be the line at which society takes issue with disability. As well, society’s understandings of both access and accommodation are both intimately informed by understandings of dependency, and what dependency looks like, and what it allegedly costs to the public.

Concept two: Access

Second to dependency, I believe the concept of access is a helpful foil, and is a topic that has dominated our class discussions this quarter, so is worthy of notice. Chapter three of Keywords for Disability Studies, by Bess Williamson, is all about access. Williamson defines it access in a few ways: as “ the ability to enter into, move about within, and operate the facilities of a site, and is associated with architectural features and technologies, including wheelchair ramps, widened toilet stalls, lever-shaped door-handles, Braille lettering, and closed-caption video”, but also acknowledges the figurative aspect of access, the “set of meanings linked to a more inclusive society with greater opportunities for social and political participation” (Williamson 14). The type of access I had considered over the quarter so far would be access in society; to jobs, resources, experiences, states; so, the first kind Williamson mentions. It’s this kind of access that the disabled are not privy to in whatever regard which sets the field of ableist privilege in society. I agree with Williamson that besides representing a type of social liberty, access and accessibility convey “arguments about rights and opportunities” (Williamson 15). Access is in this way a positive skew on the elimination of opportunities, but must not mandate “overcoming the reality of barriers” (Williamson 17). Access is not achievability, but availability. It’s through examining access that accommodation can be taken, anyhow.

Concept three: Accommodation

As mentioned twice above, I view accommodation is the praxis of access. I would have said walking into this class that accommodation was a goal of disability advocates outright, but today I would say that it is part of a customization process that some disabled people elect for and pursue to achieve better social inclusion. I was surprised that Keywords for Disability Studies’ chapter on accomodation, by Elizabeth F. Emens, only really acknowledges accomodation in institutional terms. Although the term first “gained prominence as a keyword in disability politics and theory through legal discourse” (Emens 18), it has since gone on to describe the set of manipulable parameters an institution can customize to better suit the needs of an employee, student, customer, client, etc. therein. As something that exists between institution and individual, accommodation is an intensely litigated topic, and Emens believes that to some scholars it will “always be too limited a model”,  because it’s “grounded in antidiscrimination principles” from its origins in the courthouse (Emens 20). I think that accommodation is central to disability studies because it exists in the liminal space between exclusion and inclusion, so when accommodations are available there is an additional responsibility that they must be freely and readily given. Part of my own frustration with the institutions who helped to manage my disability when I was young were the inconsistencies in delivering accommodations. To our class, the topic of accommodation is treated almost as an option to rectify the exclusion of societies which are ableist by design, and has so been a third and final focus of mine this quarter.

Conclusions:

I chose to discuss dependency, access, and accommodation because of how connected they are to each other, and to public conceptions of disability in society, one concern of disability studies. As the quarter progresses, I do expect my understanding of these topics to change, and something I would be interested in is revising this essay at the end of the quarter and measuring my academic growth on these topics. I’m grateful for the chance to be in class every day, growing my understanding, and I hope my empathy, but I am by no means a definitive authority on any of these topics. 

Works cited:

Linton, Simi. (1998). Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity. “Reassigning Meaning” pp. 8-17. New York University Press.

Adams, R., Serlin, D., & Serlin, D. (2015). Keywords for Disability Studies (Keywords). Chapters by: Emens, Elizabeth F., Kettay, Eva F., Williamson, Bess. “Accomodation”. “Dependency”. “Access”. New York: NYU Press.