Reclaiming Our Bodies And Minds Once More! #ROBAM2018 #Disability

Tags

conferences, disability, gender, politics

So this past week-end was the 2018 Reclaiming Our Bodies And Minds conference that I’ve been looking forward to all year. And I have to say, this one was particularly awesome! I’m so glad I went! Mind you, I always am. But, as I said, this year especially rocked! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make the events on the Friday night because of a very long, rather taxing meeting up at my university (more on that in future posts). Which I was bummed about, as it meant I missed the community fair and keynote! Damn! So I joined up on Saturday for that day’s sessions.

First of all, one of the awesome things about ROBAM is that it’s such a treat to be in a truly accessible space! They had the conference program in Braille and other alternative formats. But best of all, they had PSWs (Personal Support Workers) there who were able to assist me with finding the rooms where the sessions were, finding the washrooms, and finding the food. And accessing them went much more smoothly than last year! Or at least, it felt like it did. And that was such a relief, because it meant that I didn’t have to rely on wrangling random people for help like I usually do! So that meant I was really able to just relax and enjoy the conference rather than worry about how I was going to find the next session, the loo, or the lunch. And on that note, the lunch was delicious!

And then, the actual sessions themselves were some of the best I’ve heard at ROBAM in years! The day opened with a panel on thinking about how we can make spaces and events more truly accessible, shifting from a Disability rights framework to a justice framework, and thinking about accessibility as an intent to be inclusive rather than as a list of items to check off. Then we went into the first split sessions of the day.

The first one was a truly brilliant workshop on politicizing the experiences of loneliness of Mad and Disabled people. And Wow, it’s one I’m going to be thinking about for a long time to come! I went because it struck me as being super relevant to the work I do here with Phantom. But it ended up having relevances beyond that, too, in fact to my doctoral work. Because, much environmental activism these days centres on the idea of relocalizing – lives, communities, economies, etc, and much of the argument for this is that it will cure the epidemic of loneliness created by neoliberalism, or even by any form of capitalism depending on how radical the thinker you’re reading is. But it often seems to me that this desire to relocalize contains a lot of nostalgia, at times even fauxstalgia, that fails to take into account the kinds of loneliness that Queer, Mad and Disabled people experience – loneliness due to exclusions based on differences in communication style, body configurations, desire, cognition, sensory perception, and mental state. And these degrees of difference have, historically, required more than just belonging to close-knit communities with strong social ties to bridge. Indeed, historically, Queer, Mad and Disabled folks have often had to leave the communities they came from in order to find acceptance. But this workshop gave me a great deal to think about in terms of ways of possibly speaking back to this issue! I’ll write more about it in future posts.

Then in the afternoon, there were a couple of sessions on racism, displacement, sacred space, madness, and personal history. They were really excellent, and they also gave me a lot to think about! In particular, they gave me a lot to think about with regard to “unofficial” sacred spaces such as concerts or, for that matter, Phantom, and how these can be double-edged for Queer, Mad and Disabled folks. Because, they’re/we’re less excluded than they/we all too often are in official sacred spaces, but nevertheless there’s still an assumption of heteronormativity among the majority of users of these unofficial spaces that creates exclusions for them/us there too. So that was really interesting!

Then after dinner, there was a fabulous comedy night. Lots of wonderful Crip humour! And it was really great to do so much laughing after the sessions of the day. Because, although the panels and workshops were fabulous, they could be kind of heavy! They touched on a lot of tough issues. So it was great to have some good laughs after all that, and it was a great way to close off the conference! Sadly, there were no events on Sunday.

One of the coolest aspects of the week-end, though, was that I finally did something I’ve been wanting to experiment with for a while but never had the nerve before. But I figured that, if any space should be safe to try it, it should be ROBAM. And it was awesome to find that turned out to be the case! So normally I identify (as female?) and present as very femme. But for a while now, I’ve been strongly tempted every now and then to, as a friend put it, jump the gender fence – not necessarily permanently – LOL I’d miss my girly stuff too much, but every now and then. I’ve come to think of it as my alternate gender alter-ego – a guy called Erik (yes, named for the Phantom). But I’ve never actually presented as that alternate gender alter-ego before. At the conference this week-end, though, I finally decided Oh what the hell and did. And bless the conference folks for being super chill about it, LOL even though I didn’t actually get up my nerve till after I’d registered and so had to ask them to help me alter my name-tag! And it went really well, too. Nobody gave me any crap or weirdness about it! LOL Although, certain people I ran into who knew me kept going on auto-pilot and using my regular name later in the day. I’m not sure if they just weren’t reading my name-tag and going on their memories, or if putting brackets around my “real” name on the tag caused confusion. Pity, too, as the misgendering started just as I was getting comfortable presenting as Erik! So next time I’ll have to register that way from the beginning so that my name-tag’s clean and see if that helps. LOL Although, that’s when I’ll probably get the awkward questions from those particular folks. I ran into other friends, though, who were totally chill and awesome about it. And I really appreciate that! It really helped me get comfortable with how I was trying to present! So overall, it was a good and liberating experience! And it’s one I’ll try again, possibly at next year’s ROBAM, and in other safe spaces where I can find them. Because, it took me almost half the day on Saturday to stop feeling shy and self-conscious about presenting as a guy – LOL or trying to!

Anyway, it was a great week-end. And I’m really looking forward to next year’s conference! I can’t wait to see what their topic will be! And also, for next year I’m really going to try hard not to miss the call-out for papers/presentations (again). Because, I’d really love to present there as well! I don’t yet know what, though. So you’ll have to wait, and come to next year’s ROBAM to find out!

Last of #WSF2016: #Cities, #Ableism, #Disability and more!

Tags

ableism, activism, conferences, disability, organizing, politics, WSF2016

So I know that, once again, I’ve been away from posting for a really long time! Really sorry about that! It’s been a really busy couple of months with school and, of course, extra-curricular political activities. But I’ve been meaning to get back here for ages! It’s just taken me a while to have the time and the spoons.

Anyway, before going on to all the current stuff, I wanted to finish my “coverage” of the World Social Forum from back in August. Because, I definitely didn’t cover everything before! Warning, though, that might make this post a bit long. Sorry about that, but there’s a lot to pack in!

So we did actually make the workshop on Friday morning that we wanted to, which was the one from earlier in the week that got rescheduled on “The Fight for the Global City”. And boy was it awesome! There were three panelists – two from Latin America, and one from India. And they talked about various struggles for social justice in their cities, but also about various initiatives to make their cities more just and sustainable. Unfortunately, it’s been such a long time since the workshop that I can’t remember the details. But I’ll look them up as soon as I can, and post links if possible!

The most interesting idea to come from that workshop, though, and the one that’s really stayed with me as something to think about, is the idea of struggling against and resisting what they called “urban extractivism”. They suggested that, under the current neoliberal capitalist economic system, cities are looked at, not as places where people live and have community, but as resource-deposits from which profit can be extracted. So, for example they talked about real-estate markets as a form of extractivism in which land and housing are viewed as resources to be “mined” (not the exact wording, but a similar analogy). Similarly, they talked about how, in this paradigm, urban populations are looked at as a resource to be extracted – as labour, as advertising recipients, as statistical data, as heads to be paid by the number of (as in hospitals and prisons where funding as allocated according to number of patients/inmates, so more bodies = more money). It was a really interesting way to think about those processes! We tend to think of extractivism as something that happens “out there” – in mines and oil and gas extraction sites, but not as something that happens in cities. If anything, we tend to think of cities as the beneficiaries of extractivism. So I thought it was really interesting how these speakers showed how it’s not that simple! And, of course, they noted that this urban extractivism is applied differently to different urban populations, falling hardest on the urban poor.

Then, in the evening (LOL if there was an afternoon workshop I don’t remember what it was), we went to the last of what they called the “Grand Conferences”, which were basically panels of speakers on various issues that had been focussed on throughout the forum. We’d already heard one on neoliberalism and health, which was interesting if depressing, and one on LGBTQ+ struggles around the world which was really cool!

The Friday night’s, though, was on ableism. And it was fantastic! The first chap who spoke did an absolutely brilliant run-down of what ableism is, and of the difference between ableism as individual prejudice and what might be called structural ableism. I really hope his talk was YouTubed, as it’d make a great “ableism 101”! I’ll try to find it and post a link. In fact, I’ll try to do that with as many of the talks as I can, as they were all fantastic!

Then, my friend Laurence, who’s a colleague from way back when I was doing my MA, gave a really great talk on Disabled struggles in the Francophone world. She spoke about the struggle to find a way to define the issue in French without simply borrowing either the English terminology or that coming out of the academy in France, as it may not translate well since different words, with slightly different connotations, are used in different French-speaking regions. For example, she talked about how slightly different terminology is used in France vs in Quebec. And the point is, as has been done so effectively in English with the word “ableism”, to find a term that takes the presumed natural superiority of the able-body and turns it on its head to show how it actually supports a hierarchy. So it was a really interesting talk!

Then the final panelist signed about the emergence of Deaf culture and Deaf arts, and her own emergence as a Deaf poet. Again, really interesting! And I was really thrilled to hear the issue of ableism given such a prominent spot in the WSF. Because, as the title of the panel pointed out, it’s the one system of prejudice that’s all too often forgotten, even among those who are trying to organize for justice and change! So it was good, and refreshing, to have that recognized and an attempt made to do differently. Granted, the attempt could have been more successful. Sure! But, A, at least it was there, and B, that just means there’s more to work on. And the logistical challenges – of making an event like that accessible with all volunteers, a minimal budget, and an organizational structure that tries to be as horizontal as possible – are formidable! So I certainly didn’t get the sense that the access failures that there were, and there were, came from lack of trying. And they certainly seem to be open to learning how they can do stuff better in the future!

Anyway, the next day was the closing events – a sort of wrap-up conference to summarize and assemble everything that had been decided through the week in terms of actions going forward, and then a big closing concert. Mom and I didn’t go to that stuff, though, because, by then, we were both pretty exhausted! LOL We did try to go to the concert, but got seriously rained out! It was a great week, though. I’m really glad we went, and so’s Mom (LOL kind of in spite of herself)! And I very much hope I’ll have the chance to go to another WSF in the future now that I have a better sense of how the whole thing works. I think I’d get much more out of it next time, and be much better able to contribute! We’ll have to see, though. But I hope that might be possible, as, for all that it was incredibly exhausting, I had a really awesome time!

#WSF2016: #Decolonizing our #Faiths

Tags

activism, conferences, decolonizing, faith, politics, WSF2016

So the first session we actually made it to at the World Social Forum was on Wednesday afternoon. We meant to go to one in the morning too, LOL but it got moved to Friday morning amidst a great deal of confusion! At least we made the afternoon one, though. And I’m so glad we did, as it was really fantastic!

The workshop we attended, then, was called “Decolonizing Our Faiths”. It was presented by the Community of Living Traditions, which is an intentional community living just outside New York City. They are a community of Jews, Christians and Muslims working to live together in peace and fellowship while staying true to their faiths, and also while working for peace and justice in the wider world. It sounds like an amazing community, and the people I heard speak from it were awesome! I went because interfaith organizing is something I’ve been interested in for a very long time. I practice as a Christian, although I would definitely describe myself as a “cafeteria Anglican” LOL. And I know for myself what an important role my faiths, both as a Christian and as a Phantom Phan, play in informing my work for justice and peace! And I know, too, that that’s so for many others around the world. Yet, of course, I also know that one faith alone doesn’t have all the answers and can’t do it alone. So having different faiths work together for change is incredibly important! But it can also be incredibly hard because of all the histories of war, forcing conversion and other imperialist crap that has gone along with the institutions of our faiths for so many centuries, and which has built up a shit-load of mistrust, especially of Christianity because of its historic role of providing the ideological and theological justifications for Europe’s colonization and exploitation of the rest of the world. And this workshop was about exactly that – how faith communities can become aware of their histories of privilege and oppression, and how we can begin to work against them in our own traditions and beyond. It was really inspiring! The Community of Living Traditions are doing great work in that struggle!

So we talked about what decolonization meant, and how it plays/might play out in each of our traditions. We talked about the importance of recognizing the role that economic exploitation plays in driving inter-religious conflict, and, therefore, of being involved as people of faith in struggles for economic justice. We talked about traditions, not as dead continuations of history, but as living processes in the present – that it’s important to respect our traditions, but also to give them room to evolve. And we talked, which was cool, about how other things besides faiths can be living traditions! For example, we talked about how social movements, such as those of and for Black liberation, can also be living traditions, and how important it is to recognize and honour this. And we talked about the importance of having the really tough but necessary conversations, both within our own faith-communities and between them – the conversations about race, Zionism, gender, white privilege, Christian privilege, economic privilege, etc, – and of sticking with those conversations, but in a loving, respectful and supportive way. And we also talked about the importance of communities like the Community of Living Traditions as incubators for new ways of living together, which struck me as a really awesome idea!

For me, one of the most useful and powerful things to come out of the workshop was the concept, not of safe space, but of courageous space. I heard that and went “Wow!”. Because it’s true that, while we need to create spaces where people feel safe to speak their truths knowing that they will be respected, loved and supported, those spaces can’t be so safe that one is never challenged. Those spaces also have to be ones where we are able to have/find the courage to have those tough, uncomfortable conversations referenced above, and to have our comfort-zones pushed toward greater justice and inclusion. So that’s one I’m going to be thinking about a lot – how we create and nurture such courageous spaces!

#WSF2016!

Tags

activism, conferences, politics, WSF2016

Well, this is my first time trying to post from my new iPad, LOL so we’ll have to see if it works! I hope so! Anyway, so Mom and I just got back yesterday from the World Social Forum, which was held this time around in Montreal. It was really awesome! LOL Though now we’re both totally exhausted. It was fantastic, but very intensive! Wow! But it’s the first time a WSF’s Ben held somewhere we could actually get to, so we really wanted to go!

So, as you may already know, the World Social Forum was originally conceived of as an alternative to things like the WTO, OECD, G8/10/20, etc, as a global forum for ordinary people – activists and social movements – to come together to build the future we want. And hitherto, it’s been held in the so-called “global south”, most famously in Cochabamba Bolivia. But this time, in order to challenge and start to break down the north/south divide, they decided to hold it in a country of the so-called “global north”. Thus, it came to be held in Montreal Canada. The cool thing was, though, that it really was global! We had people there from all over the world, and the issues covered truly reflected the concerns of the whole world! Obviously, the refugee crisis, the climate crisis, and global concerns around corporate grabs for land, water and seeds were in particular focus since those are so hugely urgent in so many places. But lots of more specific, regional issues were addressed too, including those from here in Canada and those specific to Quebec and Montreal.

LOL Unfortunately, because of time and energy, or rather lack of the latter, we only barely scratched the surface of all there was to do at the Forum! But we did manage to get to a bunch of really fantastic workshops and panels. And we did also manage to make the WSF Cabaret each night, which was totally awesome! They had some super-talented musicians there! Wow! 🙂 And we met a lot of really great people there too. That was one of the best parts – the networking! We met new folks there, and I also got to see colleagues I haven’t seen in years except on Facebook!

Anyway, I think I’ll post about the actual events we attended separately. LOL Otherwise, this post would get really long and I’d get really tired! But that’s at least the intro. LOL So I hope this works and that this post shows up!

Another awesome conference-thing, and an awesome show to go with it!

Tags

access, arts, conferences, Crip, disability

So I had the opportunity over the week-end to take part in another totally amazing event.  Though, actually, I wasn’t there in person this time, but listened in via Livestream.  LOL I didn’t quite manage to squeeze in before they closed the registration, so I couldn’t actually be there!  But it actually worked out well, as I’m not sure I really had the energy to do another intensive week-end.  So it was actually great to be able to listen from home!  🙂 Thanks, therefore, hugely for making that available!  Much appreciated!

 

Anyway, the event was a symposium called Cripping The Arts In Canada that was jointly put on by Tangled Art + Disability and the British Council of Canada.  And it was all about how to promote Deaf and Disabled art and artists, and how to create an environment where Deaf/Disabled arts and culture can thrive.  It was really fantastic!  Unfortunately, LOL there were some issues with the Livestream as there can be with technology, so I didn’t catch everything.  Plus, I wasn’t able to listen to the final day on Saturday as I needed to try to get an article done (thank God they’ve given me a further extension on it LOL, as that didn’t quite happen).  But those sessions I did hear rocked!

 

Some of the highlights included a fabulous keynote talk to open the symposium on Thursday morning by Ruth Gould of DaDaFest from Liverpool in the U.K. And Wow! It sounds amazing! It’s a Deaf and Disability arts festival that’s been running for 15 years now, and these days gets over 100-thousand (I believe she said) visitors! Amazing! So it was awesome to hear about that and all they’ve accomplished. Then, that was followed by a really interesting series of panels and discussions on funding and finding/creating accessible spaces for Deaf and Disabled arts and artists. Lots of really useful and inspiring stuff that I’ll post more about later!

So then, on day 2, the symposium switched focus to looking at what is/are Deaf and Disability arts. Lots more really awesome discussions! Unfortunately, I missed most of the opening panel due to technical issues with the Livestream. But, from the end of it that I caught and the tweets I read, it seemed to be discussing the issue/s of non-disabled people using disability/disabled characters/disabled people in their art, and whether/to what extent that’s speaking for us rather than with us. Very important, especially when there are so many awesome Disabled and Deaf artists out there struggling to have their work recognized! Then, that was followed by a talk on Disability podcasting and its role in creating and bring together Disability culture/s. Again, very cool! Some great podcasts I’m dying to check out now!

Then, in the afternoon, there was a really interesting panel on a topic dear to my own heart and process – the role of pedagogy in Disability and Deaf arts. So it really explored the issue of the extent to which Deaf/Disability arts are/should be/can be about helping people learn and open their minds to issues around ableism and other forms of social in/justice. And it also considered what role curators of Deaf and Disability arts can/should play in making those arts pedagogical/bringing forth their pedagogical aspects. Very interesting for me as a an artist whose work frequently engages political/justice issues while trying to avoid being didactic!

Then, on the Saturday, they had what was described as a “community brain-storm” to try to come up with solutions for some of the issues raised throughout the symposium. And, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to listen to that because I needed to work on that article. But I was really glad, nonetheless, to hear they were doing it! It’s really great that they tried to bring practical solutions out of the week-end as well as just great discussion. And, apparently, they’ll be producing a resource-guide/handbook type thing out of that brain-storm session. So I’ll definitely be keeping a listen out for that!

🙂 Then, that night, they capped off the week-end with an absolutely amazingly awesome Disability arts cabaret called “Cripping The Stage”. And, being a cabaret, it featured everything from stand-up comedy to performance-art to hiphop. And all the performers were, as they say in the U.K., bloody brilliant! The performance pieces were really powerful, and the comedy had me laughing my ass off! And no, this time I wasn’t performing myself alas. Bummer! But hopefully in future I will. I’d love to have that opportunity! It’d be a huge honour to be on stage with such incredibly talented fellow Crip artists and performers! And I really hope they do this again, both the cabaret and the symposium itself! A lot of great stuff came out of both, and it’d be great to keep the momentum going!

York University 11th Annual CDSSA Conference!

Tags

academic, awesome, conferences, Crip, disability, intersectionality, politics, Queer

So Friday I attended another really awesome conference, and I thought I’d post about it.  It was the York University Critical Disability Studies Students Association’s 11th annual conference.  And, as always, it absolutely rocked!  I’ve been going for years, and have even presented at a couple of them.  And they just keep getting better!  The organizers did a great job as they always do.  The awesome part is that, right from its inception, the conference is entirely student-driven and student run!

The theme for this year was “Cripping Canada”, so all the talks and workshops looked at disability in our Canadian context in some way.  But many also looked at Canada in its global context, and where disability is in that broader picture.  Really cool, critical, thought-provoking stuff as always!  I left with a lot to contemplate!

So it opened with a really wonderful introduction by an Indigenous elder that included a smudging ceremony – which was really awesome!  Then we went into the first session.

The first session had a panel in one room and a workshop in the other, and I opted for the workshop.  It was by an organization called Deliciously Disabled, and was on disabled inclusion, or not, in Queer communities.  It was really interesting!  Although, frankly, I wish the presenter had cut a lot of the preliminary stuff on disability, ableism and sex in general, which, honestly, every one there already knew, so we could have had a lot more time for questions and discussion.  I wish we’d had a lot more time to actually talk about disabled participation in Queer communities – what’s happening, what’s not, if and where there are safe, accessible spaces for Crip people to participate in Queer communities and how to access them, etc, because that stuff’s not so well known.  At least, not to me anyway.

So then we had a break, and went into the second session – which was just a panel this time, no workshop.  So this panel was on intersections of disability and race, both here in Canada and beyond.  The first speaker discussed transnationalizing disability studies so that it’s more attentive to the way disability is situated in its global contexts – to, for example, the role that war plays around the world in producing both disability and disabling conditions, and also to the role/s that transnational relations of power play.  It was fantastic!  Then, the second speaker talked about issues around mental health and encounters with the Toronto police, and how those issues and the people who live with them were represented in a series of articles in the Toronto Star.  Again, really interesting work!

Then we had lunch, which, blessedly, was provided by the conference, and which, blessedly, was not all vegetarian and vegan LOL!  And, over lunch, LOL I got roped into going to join the meeting of the York AODA Alliance (a York-centered group working to see the Access for Ontarians with Disabilities Act actually implemented)  that was happening then.  And, actually, it was really great!  There weren’t many of us there, but it felt very productive.  Apparently the group’s only just getting up and going, so there hasn’t been much activity yet.  So the meeting was still largely set-up.  Plus, of course, it’s the end of term, and everything’s about to really scale back over the summer.  But hopefully stuff will get going in the fall! 🙂

Then, after lunch, we had the keynote.  It was given by Dr. Tanya Titchkosky, and it was absolutely mind-blowing!  I wasn’t familiar with her or her work before then, though she came very highly recommended by my colleagues.  But her talk was absolutely amazing!  Seriously, she just wrote my manifesto as an artist for me!  Her talk, as best as I can sum it up – and this completely fails to do justice to it, was on engaging disabled imaginaries to unseat normative “man” from his privileged position as difinitive humanity.  And, when they’ve got the transcripts of the conference posted on the website, I can’t reccommend highly enough that you go and read what she said!  In fact, I hope they are, or some one is, given permission to post the recording so you can actually hear her speak it!  Because, part of what made the talk so powerful was her way of delivering it.  She is a great speaker!  She has a wonderful cadence, and a real gift for pacing, inflection and emphasis, without in the least talking down to her audience.  It absolutely rocked!

Then we had another break, and went into the first of the afternoon sessions.  There was supposed to be another workshop during this session, but, unfortunately, it apparently got cancelled.  So it was just the panel.  Bummer, as that workshop was one I was really looking forward to!  But the panel was really awesome too, and, in fact, would have been a really tough choice between it and the workshop anyway.  So it worked out!  Anyway, the first speaker gave a really interesting, delightfully informal talk on “Taking Back Self-Harm” from medical discourse, and giving voice to the actual experience of those who do it.  Really interesting, and not a topic you hear discussed often!  Then, the second speaker, again, talked about intersections of disability, race, class and gender from her experience, both as an activist/organizer, and  as some one who’s done front-line work with people with cognitive “disabilities”.  Once again, really cool!

Then, the last panel of the day was on disability in the education system.  So speakers looked at, for example, the construction of “behaviourally problemed students” in the Ontario public school system, and at ableism in early childhood education, both toward students and toward educators with disabilities.  And again, examinations of how race, class and gender intersect/ed with disability figured strongly.  In fact, that was very much a theme throughout the conference, which was fantastic!

So, alas, that was the end of the conference for this year.  And, as this hopefully gives a hint of, it absolutely rocked yet again!  🙂 I’m already looking hugely forward to next year’s.  I can’t wait to hear what the theme is and what folks will do with it!  And, in fact, I hope I get the call for papers in time, because I’d love to actually present again, depending on the theme and if I have a relevant topic to speak on.  As I said, I’ve presented at their conferences in the past, and it’s been super fun!  So I’d love to do it again now that I’m back in school!

The Rest of ROBAM (Finally)!

Tags

activism, conferences, disability, politics, ROBAM

Yowch!  Sorry for not getting this posted sooner!  Though I had an awesome time at the conference, 🙂 and I did, it was really, really tiring!  And school’s not over yet!  So it’s taken me a while to get rested and get my shit together.

 

Anyway, the rest of the conference started at 10:30 on Saturday morning.  They provided breakfast, thank God!  😦 But the coffee-maker was broken, which didn’t start the day off auspiciously.  Though, thank God, that ill omen didn’t pan out, as the day ended up being awesome!  LOL And, thank God, I was able to get at least one large coffee so I wasn’t in withdrawal.  Huge thanks to the person who dashed over to the coffee-shop for me!  LOL You’re a life-saver!

 

Btw.  You can find fuller descriptions of all the panels/presentations here, including the ones I didn’t attend.

 

So we started off with a really interesting panel on accessibility and/in urban planning.  There were four speakers, all of whom were either practicing professionals in the field or were studying to be so.  They spoke about their research, and/or their experiences in trying to bring accessibility into the planning process.  And some of the projects were really interesting!  In particular, one of the students was doing her doctoral research on how to plan spaces so that they are accessible to people with dementia.  I should say, in fact, that the whole theme of the panel was to take accessibility in urban planning beyond simple “ramps and lifts” checklists to really think about how spaces do or do not serve those who use them.

 

After that, the sessions broke up into three separate streams – Places, Spaces and Histories, with different panels/presentations in each one.  So then you had to start deciding!

 

I was originally going to go to a different session.  But, on the spur of the moment, I ended up going to a session entitled “Putting Life Into Law”, whose focus was on getting the AODA (Access for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) actually implemented in a serious way.  I hadn’t originally planned on going to it because, as some one who’s not really that into law and policy, I’d feared it would be boring, depressing, or both.  But boy was it ever neither!  First of all, both of the speakers were fabulous.  And second of all, it turns out there’s a lot of really great and creative organizing going on around this issue!

 

In particular, I learned about two amazing campaigns.  The first was a mapping project called Access Now, which allows users to rate different spaces for their accessibility or lack thereof, and also to search locations to see how they’re rated.  It uses an interactive map, but, apparently, it does have a screen-reader friendly option.  Thank God!  I’d be pissed if it didn’t!  Though I haven’t actually had a chance to check it out yet, so stay tuned.  Then the second campaign was one called “Picture Our Barriers”, in which people can take photos or short videos whenever they face an access barrier, physical or attitudinal (like people with service dogs being refused entry by cabs or restaurants), and tweet them using the hash-tag #AODAfail (or, if you’re not comfortable taking photos or doing videos, you can just tweet a short word-description of the barrier – which should be done anyway for those of us who can’t see the pictures/vids).  Then, those tweets can be tweeted or re-tweeted ad infinitum, including to all our provincial politicians!  Can we say awesome?  Because, it’ll both make the barriers we face more visible to the general public, and, hopefully, generate pressure on our legislators to implement the law they passed.  Needless to say I’m really excited about both of those!

 

So after that was lunch.  And I have to say that I liked the food much better than last year!  LOL Mostly because they had non-Vegan options this time so I could actually eat meat.  LOL Thanks hugely for that people!  Much appreciated!

 

Then, after lunch, I went to a really interesting presentation and discussion on intergenerational trauma.  The speaker used her own family history to analyze how recent trauma (her grandparents were survivors of the Holocaust) had lead to the adoption of dominant ideologies – of race, class, ableism, and what she called “sanism” – as a coping strategy to create a sense of security.  She then explored how this coping strategy had lead to further violence within the family as members who deviated from this adoption of dominant ideologies and values were  punished and repressed for “allowing” the effects of intergenerational trauma to manifest as madness/disability.  And that presentation lead to a really interesting and fruitful discussion around how to heal from intergenerational trauma, both individually, but also collectively and culturally, and the importance of coming to understand how individual family histories fit into larger structures of oppression.  Many of us are hoping to be able to keep those discussions going beyond the conference, as we all felt there was a lot more to say and to work on!

 

So then, the last session I went to was called “Self-Care for Skeptics”, and, again, it was as much discussion as presentation.  Basically, the presenter had created a zine in order to explore, in a Feminist participatory research way, the issue of self-care.  Because, although she recognized the necessity of taking care of oneself to avoid activist burn-out, she was also becoming significantly uncomfortable with the way self-care culture was becoming individualized and commercialized, and was playing into really problematic discourses that glorify the young, fit, able body/mind.  So she showed us some of the pieces – essays, poems and artwork – that ended up in the zine, and we all had a really interesting discussion of the issues around self-care and collective care.

 

After that we had dinner (which I didn’t like nearly as much as the lunch because the chicken was way to spicy for my admittedly wimpy comfort-level), followed by a really interesting performance!  It’s become customary in the past couple of years to have a guest-performance, either on the Friday night, the Saturday night or both, and this year’s was by an artist named Lana K.  I’d love to hear her entire show!  She performed excerpts of a monodrama she’s working on all about challenging ableism and industrialized education by rediscovering alternatives buried in ancestral memory.  It was really cool!  And it gave me some really interesting ideas for some of my own future performances.

 

Then, sadly, we closed out the conference on Sunday afternoon, though, we did so in a really delightful way.  Just as on Friday when it opened, the conference closed off with a potluck and community fair so we could all connect and hang out one more time.  It was really nice!  And I got to hang out with a friend whom I haven’t seen in years except on Facebook!  In fact, that was one of the best parts of the whole conference – reconnecting with current friends whom I haven’t seen in ages and meeting new people.  I made a lot of really great contacts!

 

🙂 And, I’m happy to say, I did have more people come up to me and tell me they liked my performance on Friday night.  So that was a delightful little ego-boost too!

 

Anyway, LOL I already can’t wait for next year.  I had a fabulous time, and I know the next one will be just as awesome!

ROBAM day 1.

Tags

conferences, disability, intersectionality, performances, politics

So tonight was the opening of the 2016 Reclaiming Our Bodies And Minds conference, to which I’ve been looking forward all year!  It’s an inter-university Disability conference jointly put on by York (my university), Ryerson, the University of Toronto, and one other.  I want to say Humber College, but I’m not sure that’s correct.  Anyway, ROBAM’s always one of the highlights of my year, because you always get to hear about awesome and inspiring intersectional resistance to heteropatriarchal Capitalist White ableism.  So it’s one of the places I go to get re-energized!

 

Anyway, this year’s conference opened tonight with a community fair, in which various groups and organizations made themselves available for folks to come learn about who they are and what they do.  🙂 The coolest of these (at least that I know about, as, sadly, I didn’t get to check them all out as I was a bit late) was a group presenting a DIY alternative communications device called the Talk Box!  It’s aimed at making access-technology both affordable and easy to repair without specialized knowledge.  So, really trying to put it  in the hands of those who use it, rather than those of funding gate-keepers and other “experts”.

 

Then, after that, we had the keynote address.  It was given jointly by Vanessa and Lindsay Grey, the pair of awesome sisters  who’ve spearheaded resistance to massive industrial pollution and, thus, environmental racism in their community of Aamjinwaang – a First Nations community in south-western Ontario affectionately known as Chemical Valley.  So they talked about the effects on their community of being literally surrounded by petrochemical plants – polluted air and water, and, of course, all kinds of health problems.  It’s really appalling!  And, of course, and this is where the environmental racism part comes in, this has been allowed to happen because it’s an Indigenous  community.  The powers that be – municipal, provincial and federal governments and general society – would never tolerate that kind of pollution being inflicted on White settlers!  So, given that the ROBAM theme this year is “navigating our places, spaces and histories”, their talk really started us all off powerfully thinking about those navigations and their problems.  You can check out their website – Aamjinwaang Solidarity – to find out more about the situation and the community’s resistance to it.

 

🙂 Then, to close out the evening, they had an open-mike!  LOL Though, things were running late by then, so there was only half an hour left for it.  But it worked out, as it turned out only two of us had signed up!  LOL They sent the call out a bit at the last minute.  Though, 🙂 having been guilty of that myself on more than one occasion, I can hardly criticize!  So the first performer was a stand-up comedian.  And she was fantastic!  LOL Great dark humour!  Then, yours truly got up and did my version of the old protest-song Bread And Roses, which has been one of my favourites since the first time I heard it.  But I try to give it a bit more teeth than is usually done!  So my version’s closer to metal.  😦 Not sure it went over as well as I’d have liked.  Maybe my spoken intro was too long?  🙂 I did have at least one person tell me it was awesome, though. So that was great!

 

Anyway, tomorrow’s the full day with all the panels and presentations.  So I’d better go check the schedule and decide which ones I want to hear!  But hopefully I’ll have a chance to post about it afterwards too, either that or after the whole conference ends.  LOL What can I say?  I love these things, but they can be a bit tiring!  But I’ll definitely post about the rest as soon as I can!