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Interdisciplinary Disability Studies (IDS)

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DIS 300 Disability: Interaction of Human Diversity and Global Environments

Overview: This course is designed to introduce the student to disability as an element of human diversity that has a significant reciprocal relationship with the environment. We begin by discussing prevalence and incidence of disability across the globe, examine the historical changes in concepts of disability over time, and then study disability as a human phenomenon which both emerges from and influences biological, economic, physical, social, political, spiritual, cultural, technological and virtual environments.

Instructors

• Stephen Gilson, Ph.D.
• Elizabeth DePoy, Ph.D.
• BJ Kitchin, MSW

In the spring 2008 semester, in order to explore the nature of diversity and the reciprocal interaction of environments and disability as one element of human diversity, students systematically read about and examined questions related to the body, the environment, and the interaction between them.

Here are some examples of intellectual struggles and students’ questions emerging from scholarly exchange about limits of the body, environments, and body-environment fit.

What is a body?

Is a prosthetic leg part of the body if it is not being worn? Are wheelchairs part of the body? Are hearing aids part of the body?

Is technology part of the body, (e.g., prosthetics, Bluetooth, etc.)

Are thoughts and emotions part of the body once they are expressed to others? Is one’s body image part of the body?

Are these two runners equivalent?

Do they each have two legs?

Questions related to embodiment

How is steroid use different than enhancing the body with prosthetic devices? How does environment change the body and visa versa? Is body-building a rejection of one’s body, enhancement of health?

What is the environment and what are elements of the environment?

Is the same space a single environment (e.g. changed by weather, construction, object placement, etc.)?

How do virtual environments interact with physical environments? Change them, become them?

Boxing on Wii

How do bodies and environments influence one another?

The Bone Chair

Paralympic water polo player

Body or environment?

The Mind Chair uses sensory technology to transmit moving imagery to the brain.

Arbitrary constructions of disability

What is the distinction between adaptive equipment and typical equipment?

Ski pole	Ski outrigger

Why are “books on tape” considered adaptations for the blind but podcasting is not?

Why is an identical item considered medical if it is purchased in medical supply store and commercial if it is purchased in a retail store (e.g. hiking stick or cane; exercise equipment, memory devices, etc.)?

Arbitrary labeling related to disability and diverse environments

Why is an audio-recorder considered adaptive in a lecture class but not for conducting interviews in an ethnographic study?

To what extent does the “professional health care environment benefit and thus create disability status"?

How does the ill-fit of bodies and environments contribute to disability? (e.g. if stairs did not exist, would wheeled mobility be disabling?)

Is disability static or changed by how one interacts with diverse environments?

Is disability caused primarily by environments? (e.g. not hearing in a noisy space, being distracted by too much visual input)

What is universal design?

If it is linked to disability, is it simply a euphemism for accommodation and specialized treatment?

Picture This! The Metropolitan Museum of Art receives the 2003 Universal Design Award from the National Endowment of the Arts "This program is a touch tour consisting of six ancient Egyptian sculptures. Visitors who are blind or partially sighted are invited to touch these sculptures of pharaohs, gods, and goddesses."

Is universal design even possible given the diversity of bodies, ideas and behaviors?

How is universal design related to full access?

To what extent does universal design consider economic access?

Balancing Human rights and Full access

Who should pay for expanding access?

What variables are omitted from conversations about full access (e.g. economics, intellect, and religion, etc.)?

To what extent does specialized and protective human rights legislation perpetuate segregation?

 

 

 

What is disability?

Can it be both medically caused and socially constructed?

Is disability equivalent to poverty?

How does individual income change the nature of disability?

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