Positionality in relation to disability: Able-bodied white male 50 years old living in london.
The context of the article is Akinsete is an associate dean of students (wellbeing and inclusion) at UAL, he is writing in a Shades of Noir publication. Shades of Noir is an anti-racism platform that contributes to UAL work around race equality.
‘Who said the social model of disability couldn’t co-exist with the social theory of intersectionality?’
Social model of disability: The social model of disability was developed by disabled people and describes people as being disabled by barriers in society, not by our impairments or difference. If modern life was set up in a way that was accessible for disabled people, then we would not be excluded or restricted.
Social theory of intersectionality: the interconnected nature of social categorisations such as race, class, and gender, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
Culturally inclusive classroom: is onewhere students and staff alike recognise, appreciate and capitalize on diversity so as to enrich the overall learning experience.
‘we are all within ourselves a multicultural, made up of things that we are very aware of, and things that we are not’. Rebekah Ubuntu.
I think this is a fantastic article and clearly communicates my job as a technician is to include as many individuals as possible in classes in my workshops. It should be my privilege to make my workshop accessible rather than an inconvenience I grudgingly undertake because UAL wants me to.
‘isn’t it the ultimate humiliation that it is us, able-bodied individuals who are the uncomfortable ones, projecting this discomfort beyond ourselves (as similarly contemplated by Ava DuVernay)? If so, perhaps we should spend more time considering how we might adapt our surroundings and our environment and not the individual who happens to have a disability’ Rotimi Akinsete.
As far as I am aware there are no visibly disabled students or staff on the Textiles programme at Chelsea, this is very sad and means we are failing in our aims to be inclusive.
In response to the concept of The Social Model of disability:
Akinsete pointed out, ‘The law around disabilities is indeed underpinned by The Social Model and it is clearly stated by services supporting disabled individuals that the focus of work and communication surrounding removing barriers within the environment(both physically and social remains at its core.’ I agree Akinsete suggested that actively listening to disabled individual’s stories would help others to learn more about disabled people’s needs.
At LCF I can see there are a lot of facilities who have been installed to removing barriers for disabled people and improve their physical accessibility to the school building. However, I just think there is something that are fundamentally missing. For instance, even though disabled students/ staffs can access the photography studios which are not located on the ground floor at Lime Grove, there is a lack of facilities and setting in studio that can support disabled students’s learning and studio practices.
Similar to your experiences, I have never met any students with visible disability so far in my teaching? If there is disabled student admitted in photography or other media course with studio based learning class, will the required services and facilities then catch up to facilitate the disabled students’ learning? Or does all the awareness of disability admission is just on the theoretical level in higher education?
In response to the concept of The Social Model of disability:
Akinsete pointed out, ‘The law around disabilities is indeed underpinned by The Social Model and it is clearly stated by services supporting disabled individuals that the focus of work and communication surrounding removing barriers within the environment (both physically and social remains at its core.‘ I agree Akinsete suggested that actively listening to disabled individual’s stories would help others to learn more about disabled people’s needs.
At LCF I can see there are a lot of facilities which have been installed to remove barriers for disabled people and improve their access to the school building. However, I just think there are some things that are fundamentally missing. For instance, even though disabled students/ staff can access the photography studios which are not located on the ground floor at Lime Grove, there is a lack of facilities and setting in studio that can support disabled students’s learning and studio practices.
I have never met any students with visible disability so far in my teaching. If a disabled student was admitted in photography or other media course with studio based learning class, would the required services and facilities then catch up to facilitate the disabled students’ learning? Or is all the awareness of disability just at a theoretical level in higher education?
This is a very interesting article, which I also thought was related to my technical role. One question that arises is how do we know if we are doing enough to make our workshops accessible ? I agree with the point ‘we should spend more time considering how we might adapt our surroundings and our environment and not the individual who happens to have a disability’ Rotimi Akinsete. This is something we all may need to explore within our practices. Thanks Michael.
Hi Michael, Thanks for your post. I really enjoyed reading it. I loved when you wrote “´perhaps we should spend more time considering how we might adapt our surroundings and our environment and not the individual who happens to have a disability’ Rotimi Akinsete.”
We definitely should. And for that we have to have diversity in our staff and students and talk about through personal experiences.