Abstract Title:
Geography of Disability

is part of the Paper Session:
Social and Access Issues in the Geography of Health

   scheduled on Saturday, 3/8/2003 at 1:00 p.m.

Author(s):

Janet E. Kodras - Florida State University jkodras@coss.fsu.edu (Presenter)


Abstract:

Distribution of disability will be examined at the state, MSA and county levels using data from the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participants and the 2000 U.S. Census. Age, race, sex, poverty and employment groupings will be used cartographically in the attempt to explain geographic differences in disability rate. Three domains of disability will be considered: communication, physical and mental. Dangerous occupations are expected to correlate with the incidence of disability, but residual variation is expected to result from unemployment rate trends, poverty indicators and social support structures available to unemployed workers. Prior disability geography has consisted predominantly of case studies, memoirs, and oral histories. The current work, in contrast, analyzes national cross-sectional data concerning disability distribution and the relationship of disability to economic variation.

The investigator, an aphasic stroke survivor, will present data and findings with the assistance of a computerized voice synthesizer and data projector.

Keywords:

disability, poverty, scale

Abstract Title:
Spatial Implications of Disability in Canada: Using GIS as a Tool for Social Policy Analysis

is part of the Paper Session:
Social and Access Issues in the Geography of Health

   scheduled on Saturday, 3/8/2003 at 1:00 p.m.

Author(s):

Wendy Miller - University at Buffalo (Presenter)

wemiller@buffalo.edu


Abstract:

The human rights model of disability views disability as a societal issue rather than a result of an individuals impairment. Within this model, disability is seen as a form of social oppression. This project implements the human rights model of disability in the analysis of data from several national surveys. Education, literacy, employment, recreation, and transportation were some of the primary focus areas as well as existing social policy issues. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were used as a tool for analysis in addition to displaying the data in a form accessible to a wide audience. Difficulties in using this method are discussed and the need for the addition of qualitative methods, such as the evaluation of personal narratives or group discussions is presented.

Keywords:

disability, social policy, GIS

Abstract Title:
Recalcitrant Bodies/ Recombinant Selves: Trajectories of Disability and Narratives of Growth in Children

is part of the Paper Session:
New Directions in Children's Geographies 5: Childhood, Identity and the Body

   scheduled on Thursday, 3/6/2003 at 5:00 p.m.

Author(s):

Susan Ruddick - University of Toronto ruddick@geog.utoronto.ca (Presenter)

Pat McKeever - University of Toronto


Abstract:

"How do narratives of degeneration and pathology intersect with and complicate normative stories of development and ‘growing up’ as an unfolding and emancipation of self?" In this paper we will explore norms and forms of western childhood in contemporary literature against narratives of disease and degeneration. Through this review we intend to isolate some of the now taken for granted markers of western childhood -- the cultural idealizations and technological measures of the ‘normal’ body in childhood. These include ideas of bodily purity, innocence, processes of civilizing the body [control of bodily functions] and normal trajectories of growth and development and the like.
We postulate that taken for granted markers of childhood are made liminal and ambivalent in the presence of degenerative diseases and they complicate the [conceptual and literal] spaces and temporalities of childhood. We are interested in the ways in which childhood itself creates potential spaces of openness for people contending with degenerative disease.
Drawing on theoretical frameworks informed by a politics of difference and a sympathetic and hopeful reading of the monstrous and the grotesque [Derrida, Harraway, Shildrick, Cohen], the authors examine the ways narratives of growth and trajectories of disability might intersect with one another to produce different -- and potentially emancipated --understandings of the relationship between body and self, body and machine, between the natural and the chemical, between the self and other.

Keywords:

childhood, difference, disability, normal

Abstract Title: Law's contexts and scales: A Critical Legal Geographical study of disability is part of the Paper Session: Natures, spaces, identities: Cultural Geography from 'Landscape Surgery' 2    scheduled on Wednesday, 3/5/2003 at 3:00 p.m.
Author(s): Fayyaz Vellani - (Presenter) Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interrelationships between law, geographical scale, and disability. It begins by noting that in the Anglo-American liberal tradition, law is constructed as abstract and impersonal, and far removed from the particulars of space, place, and culture. Questions of geographical scale and specificity are rarely if ever broached. In contrast, an emerging, if eclectic, approach to law, that is, critical legal studies, seeks to show how geographical context and scale shapes law and legal processes in very real and practical ways. My paper, in drawing on aspects of critical legal studies, examines the importance of geographical scale in an understanding of the interrelationships between law and the lived lives of disabled people. In particular, the paper draws on original empirical findings in referring to the role of civil rights legislation in influencing the form and content of disabled people’s lives in Australia, the UK and the USA. Keywords: disability, civil rights, legislation
Abstract Title: (Dis)abling childhood within ‘inclusive’ primary schools is part of the Paper Session: New Directions in Children's Geographies 5: Childhood, Identity and the Body    scheduled on Thursday, 3/6/2003 at 5:00 p.m.
Author(s): Louise Holt - Brighton University (Presenter) Abstract: This paper presents empirical findings from qualitative research with ‘disabled’ and ‘non-disabled’ children within two mainstream primary schools in the UK. The discussion focuses on the diverse representations, performances and experiences of ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’ within various school micro-spaces (e.g. classrooms, dining room, playground). It is argued that particular children are ‘othered’ within some primary school settings, due to an emphasis on body-mind regulation and hierarchies of achievement. At the same time, it is shown that children’s experiences of disability / ability differ both within various intra-school spaces and between schools. This is an expression of the creative human agency of adults and children within institutional school spaces. In order to provide nuanced understanding of the everyday processes of disablement and enablement within (primary) schools, it is essential to prioritise the voices of children within spatially sensitive frameworks. The paper therefore stresses the need to destabilise the conceptualisation of childhood as incompetent, innocent and carefree, as children often reflect upon difficult and complex relationships and events within the school context. Keywords: mainstream primary schools, children, probematic childhoods, disability
	Panel Session: 5420. The Ghettoization of Literacy and Disability: Spatial Implications for Social Policy (Sponsored by Disability Specialty Group)     is scheduled on Thursday, 3/6/2003 from 1:00 p.m. - 2:40 p.m.
	Organizer(s): · Wendy Miller - University at Buffalo Chair(s): · Wendy Miller - University at Buffalo Participant(s): Wendy Miller - University at Buffalo (Introduction) wemiller@buffalo.edu Ezra Zubrow - University Ar Buffalo (Panelist) zubrow@acsu.buffalo.edu Marcia Rioux - York University (Panelist) mrioux@york.ca Mary Bunch - York University (Panelist) Michael L. Dorn - Temple University (Panelist)