Invitation to open discourse

Soon we shall launch an electronic discourse on this blog on self-advocacy. The discourse will be facilitated by Amita Dhanda, a well-known disability advocate and by Gábor Gombos, who is a self-advocate. Our joint work over the past months convinced me that there is a huge need to openly discuss a number of key issues if we are to promote self-advocacy in the field of disability rights and well beyond.

Below is an excerpt from a draft text, which we will soon finalise and make accessible to initiate the discourse.

>>While elaborating on the faces of oppression in “Justice and Politics of Difference” Iris Young includes cultural imperialism as one of the faces of the oppression. To experience cultural imperialism she says, is to “experience how the dominant meanings of a society render the particular perspectives of one’s own group invisible, at the same time as they stereotype one’s group and mark it out as the other”.

This imperialism is strengthened by the fact that the dominant group often has exclusive or primary access to both means of interpretation and communication in a society. (Nancy Fraser). Consequently, “the dominant cultural products of the society that is those most widely disseminated, express the experience, values, goals, and achievements of these groups. Often without noticing they do so, the dominant groups project their own experience as representative of humanity as such”.

Persons with disabilities are amongst the defined others who experience this exclusion. In order to overthrow the subjugation of the imperializing group, the excluded community needs to obtain voice for its own perspective and experience. The assertion of this perspective however requires persons with disabilities to assert their disabled identity. A process which triggers the double consciousness referred to by Du Bois whereby while the excluded persons seek recognition for their humanness, their hopes and aspirations, their capabilities; the dominant community only seeks to reinforce their difference, deviance and inferiority. Person with disabilities are especially dissuaded from adopting this course of action by the disqualifications that the law imposes on persons with intellectual and psychosocial disability. A number of persons with psychosocial disabilities retain their civil status by maintaining silence on their disabled identity. Consequently they fear that the public assertion of their disabled identity could cause loss of civil status and activate the disqualifications.

The situation then is that the dominant perspective on persons with intellectual and psycho social disability presumes them as incompetent and dangerous. To challenge this perspective, it is important that persons with intellectual and psycho social disability show the falsehood of the belief. This demonstration enterprise is severely impeded by social stigma which is reinforced by legal disqualification resulting in selective listening to the self-advocate. When he/she says what the dominant perspective wants to hear, he/she is heard, otherwise the self-advocate’s views are ignored as incompetent. So how does one deal with this lose-lose situation where if you don’t speak you allow the social stereotype on persons with disabilities to continue unchallenged and if you do speak, you expose yourself to legal proceedings. This fear of legal proceedings gets many a person with disabilities to live his or her life in denial of their disability. Insofar as their disability is an integral part of their identity, such denial causes persons with disabilities to lead a false and incomplete life.<<

Some of the issues we are flagging at this early stage of announcing an upcoming discourse include:

• Self-advocacy and cultural imperialism
• How to prepare ground for self-advocacy
• Supporting the self-advocate
• Shall advocacy be only self-advocacy?
• Reasonable accommodation in self-advocacy
• The economy of passion and commitment

and much more. Stay with us until the discourse kicks off.

Amita Dhanda and Gábor Gombos