Introduction
2 Positionality and Reflexivity Statement
The Institute for Community Prosperity strives to make the membrane that separates academic insight and community insight more permeable. We are in the highly privileged position of being able to readily access the best of both worlds. Being part of a university gives us access to research and datasets that are usually behind paywalls. At the same time, we believe strongly that any research or knowledge mobilization we undertake must a) be done in partnership with a community organization or institution outside of campus; and b) must be publicly accessible, free of cost, and open access (via Creative Commons license). This scan on accessibility has also prompted us to look more carefully at the other dimensions of access to our publications and communications, beyond financial and scholastic barriers.
Before proceeding further into the insights gleaned during this scan, it is important to describe the positionality of the authors and the frame within which this scan was undertaken. We share this, aware of the maxim “nothing about us without us”[1], and acknowledge upfront that a limitation of this scan is that it has not been authored by someone directly living with significant or permanent barriers to accessibility.
James – I am an able-bodied man. My experience with accessibility is limited to situational and temporary disability, and only in a support role with respect to permanent disability; My partner lives with a mobility-related disability and I had a parent who lived with monocular vision (having lost an eye to childhood cancer). My efforts in learning about accessibility and disability have been deeply informed by my lifelong journey as a planner and social impact practitioner to investigate, co-design, and advocate for forms of citizen access to, and influence on, institutions and systems.
Cordelia – I am an able-bodied woman. The course of writing this scan coincided with me becoming a support-person for a loved one navigating the process of diagnosing and seeking accommodations for a cognitive disability. My efforts in navigating the realm of disability as a support person has been greatly improved through my work on this scan and this scan has likewise benefitted from my personal journey. My professional experience, based in my education as a social worker, has been as an advocate for accessibility, focusing primarily on advocacy for accommodations in the classroom.
It was also critical to the authors and to ATCO that an array of first-person perspectives help inform this work. Refer to APPENDIX A: INTERVIEWEES for a list of interviewees. Aware of the consultation fatigue experienced by many who advocate for greater accessibility, we have also tried to incorporate first-person perspectives gleaned from publicly available interviews, speeches, social media channels, and other resources drawing from and reflecting on lived experience. We have sought sources that are open to the public and aim to go beyond what is usually considered academic research, because people with disabilities’ entry into, and representation in, academic roles, institutions, and databases is more limited.
In referencing and crediting these sources, we have used a mix of strategies to ensure sources remain available to our audience. Modifying citation styles, prioritizing links to websites to download pdfs rather than pdfs themselves (which can become dead links more quickly), and noting limitations in referencing content are some strategies we have used to create reliable paths to sources. For more on our methodology and approach, see APPENDIX B: METHODOLOGY.
- “Nothing about us without us”, which has been used as a self-determination slogan for hundreds of years in the context of Eastern European political discourse, was first popularized in North America by disability activist James Charlton, also the eponymous title of his 1998 book. The United Nations and countless disability organizations movements have since used the phrase, as well as by many other equity-deserving groups. James I. Charlton. (1998). Nothing About Us Without Us. University of California Press. ↵
