“SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY AND DISABILITY STUDIES MAKE A ‘GOOD

MARRIAGE’?!

Studying ‘jammed’ life trajectories and creative strategies of people with intellectual disabilities and

their environment.

LIEN CLAES – GHENT UNIVERSITY Disability Studies Conference Lancaster 2010

SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION…

PhD research:

- Ghent University, Faculty of Psychology & Educational Sciences, Department of Special Education

- “Jammed trajectories and creative solutions for people with intellectual disabilities and their environment: life story research from a cross-fertilization of the perspectives ‘disability studies’ and ‘social geography’.”

- Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Geert Van Hove

INTRODUCTION People with intellectual disability (ID) and

additional mental health problems: complex support questions and limited support (“jammed situations” – “falling between two stools”)- Exclusion criterions- General lack of expertise- Long waiting lists- Little coordination/collaboration between mental

health care and support system for people with ID

At the same time: people are (supposed to) and should be very mobile (cf. endless trajectories in the care/support system)

INTRODUCTION Current research: medical-psychiatric

discourse (focus on: individual problems, symptoms, diagnoses, treatment,… – without charging the context)

This research: social interpretations(focus on: life (hi)stories and trajectories of people with ID ánd their environment)

- ‘Space’ and ‘place’ as valuable indicators- 5 (?) extensive case studies- Variety of research methods

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS Looking for a theoretical framework that:

Could capture the apparent field of tension (‘jammed’ vs. ‘mobile’)

Fits with the ambition to focus on life (hi)stories, trajectories and personal experiences of ‘space’/‘place’

Disability Studies Disability as socio-cultural construct widens the

target The choice/wish to describe, analyze, understand,

change,.. (rather than diagnose or treat) But…disability studies doesn’t highlight a spatial

approach?

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS Social Geography:

Studies socio-spatial processes regulating and reproducing social exclusion and oppression and wants to bring the perspectives and lived experiences of marginalized groups

Different view in studying life trajectories, spatialities and processes of in/exclusion of people with ID and mental health problems

“Could a creative cross-fertilization of the perspectives make a Good Marriage?”

THE PLACE OF (INTELLECTUAL) DISABILITY IN SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY Social geography: what’s in a name?!

From ‘science of places’ to ‘social science’, from ‘the study of people and nature in intricate relation’ to ‘the analysis of social phenomena in space’…

Evolutions in scope, content and methodology Concerned with social issues affecting people’s

lives (eg. class, gender, poverty,…) and the role of space in the creation of social relations, identities, social inequalities and oppression

Involves the understanding of the patterns which arise from the use social groups make of space and of the processes involved in making and changing such patterns

THE PLACE OF (INTELLECTUAL) DISABILITY IN SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY Geographies of disability:

Before ‘90: disability was hardly considered By the end of the ’90s: more attention (‘an

important area of scholarship within human geography’)

Initially: physical disability and mental health problems

Geographies of intellectual disability remained neglected and marginalized

Paradigm shift: from medicalized/positivist to social model/social constructionist perspective

OPENING SPACE… Opening space for geographies of

(intellectual) disability in social geography Opening space for the spatial and

geographical in disability studies

-> Marriage is ‘reflected’ in 3 sections of research questions:

1. Boundaries in spatial trajectories2. Space, place and the construction of

meanings3. Space, place and relations

OPENING SPACE Boundaries in spatial trajectories:

How are people with ID and mental health problems moving within the institutions that are created and organized for them?

What are boundaries in their spatial moving?

How can ‘mobility’ – as an interdisciplinary studied metaphor – counter the idea of ‘jammed situations’?

OPENING SPACE Space, place and construction of meanings

How are space en place contributing to disability as social construction?

What is the meaning of ‘spaces’ (eg. Isolation rooms) and ‘places’ (eg. Place on a waiting list)?

On which apparent conflicting ways are people (re)presented and (re)presenting themselves (from stucked to mobile subjects)?

OPENING SPACE Space, place and relations

How can space enable or limit interactions en relations?

Who are ‘significant’ others in the natural and professional networks of people?

How are space and place defining processes of inclusion/participation/belonging and processes of exclusion/marginalization/othering?

-> Exploring intimate social and spatial worlds of people: less traditional creative research approaches (cf. disability studies)