Our Voices: Conversations of Disability: Recent Episodes
Andrew Music TV
Our Voices is an independent podcast that opens critical conversations on disability by engaging with disabled people, scholars, activists, and advocates. Our Voices is defined as the conception of acknowledging and recognizing disabled people's voices. This podcast holds space to imagine and desire building an alternative world that can value and/or accept our identities in the disability community. What would an accessible world look like without systemic barriers? What issues we still continue to experience? Join Damian and I as we interview several wonderful guests in Disability Studies.
In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Keri Cameron, professor and faculty member of the Educational Support program at Sheridan College. Our roundtable discussion entails Keri's experience of using universal design for learning as her pedagogy to engage post-secondary students in critical disability issues. We've discussed about the possibilities and benefits of utilizing pedagogies to enhance student learning. This includes community advocacy projects for students to bring theories of disability into hands-on practice through series of arts-based projects, media and/or writing. We also talked about how current and future educators can open conversations around lived experiences with students as a way to build critical conversations around disability and intersectionality.
Book recommendation: Disability Politics and Theory - Revised and Expanded edition by A.J Withers. Foreword: Robyn Maynard. Afterword: Rachel da Silveira Gorman
How can disabled voices be used as a tool to encourage public audiences to avoid using ableist language in their everyday life? Language is the way we speak and write through metaphors, lexicons, phrases, and passages. In this episode, join me in the discussion about the historical and contemporary context of language within Disability Studies. This includes contemporary popular film, television, literature and social media, and tracing back to the historical period of eugenics in the early 20th century. I've discussed about ways ableist language, such as euphemisms, is criticized by disability activists and scholars. I end the segment by discussing ways disabled/mad/deaf/neurodivergent people can come together to promote educational awarenesses on social media and seminar workshops that involve disrupting and challenging ableist language.
In this episode, I engage in a thought-provoking conversation about disability representation in the mass media. I've talked about the role the media industry plays in shaping disability representations, how it influences public perceptions, and the ways it perpetuates ableist cultural tropes. I also talked about how disabled/mad/deaf/autistic people of color have been underrepresented and how their expertise can be used as a strategy to disrupt traditional thinking of lived experiences presented in movies and television. How can we, as a community, improve the representation of lived experiences of disability, madness, Deafhood, and autism? Below are a few recommended articles I've used from my thesis project, which focuses on disability representations and intersectionality. We do recommend reading these articles. Aspler, J., Harding, K.D. & Cascio, M.A. (2022). Representation Matters: Race, Gender, Class, and Intersectional Representations of Autistic and Disabled Characters on Television. Studies in Social Justice. Vol. 16 (2). 323-348.Dean, M. & Nordahl-Hansen, A. (2022). A Review of Research Studying Film and Television Representations of ASD. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. Vol. 9. 470-479.Rice, C., Chandler, E., Harrison, E., Liddiard, K. & Ferrari, M. (2015). Project Revision: disability at the Edges of Representation. Disability & Society. Vol. 30 (4). 513-527. Taylor & Francis Group.
In today's episode, we are joined by Kayla Besse in the discussion on making space for disability art. Damian, Kayla and I immersed in an engaging conversation around the ways disability art acknowledges the voices of disabled artists, discussing accessible futures in the disability arts sector, research in the relaxed performance spaces using methodologies that involve relationship-building, and the recent Crip Rituals exhibit at Tangled Art. Damian and I also learned about Kayla's favourite passion in the disability arts movement amid pandemic times, Soft Office! How does disability art challenge stereotypical ideologies of disabled people? Where do we go from here to build an accessible-friendly world? Find out in this new episode of Our Voices: Conversations of Disability.
To learn more about the Crip Rituals exhibit, the links of the website is provided below:
https://tangledarts.org/whats-on/cripritual/ (Tangled Art + Disability website)
https://cripritual.com/ (Crip ritual website)
In this episode Damian and I interview our first two guests of the series, Stephanie Haft and Ghofran Alyass, in relation to their newly launched disability organization: BeyondAbilities. We asked them how this business is rooted through a disability justice perspective, challenges and disrupt cultural barriers for Disabled/Mad/Deaf communities, and how it can open the possibilities to make disabled people's voices heard.
Join Damian Beaton and I as we introduce you to this brand new anticipating podcast series on disability. This episode focuses on who we are, what we like to do in our spare time, how we come to know disability through lived experiences and explaining the themes we will be discussing through each episode.