Ade Adeptian makes an important point – it is not the disability itself that renders individuals disabled, but rather the societal structures that hinder the participation of disabled. As a black man he talks about explicit discrimination that is now not tolerated. However, battling systemic, invisible discrimination when it comes to jobs and other opportunities is much harder.
Artist Christine Sun Kim underscores the difference moving to Berlin, a more inclusive city, made to her life. Where debt was not the precondition of living somewhere. What struck me was what she said about not having the privilege to be misunderstood as an artist. That as a deaf artist she always has to explain what she means. I have never had to consider this – this is my privilege. It also makes me think of the work I make – non-fiction video essays that do not contain dialogue as I do not speak the language of the people whose stories I tell. In my work, what you see is what you get. But sight is also a privilege.
Chay Brown recognises his own privilege – being white and being able to pass as a cis-male with a hidden disability. He makes an important point about inclusion. That the most accessible events are organised by people who understand access from their lived experience.
Ade, Christine and Chay talk about discrimination by design – cities, education, professional opportunities.
From my own experience having lived and studied in India for most of my life, I know that invisible disabilities are not diagnosed nearly as much as they are here in the UK. Many students I taught at the undergraduate level in Bangalore had been through twelve years or more of schooling without ever knowing they had dyslexia. Lack of access is an issue for large portions of the population. For those that have the resources and access to medical facilities, this is often not taken up as there is a lot of stigma attached to the names that diagnoses deliver – dyslexia, asperger’s, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, autism, ADHD to name a few. This might explain why the proportion of international students who do not disclose disabilities is so high.
Teaching in the UK, I find that diagnosis is more complex when students come to study with English as a foreign language. When writing is not fluent enough to offer clues or the heavy reliability on AI to clean up writing – though this might be true for students across the board. As a year-one leader previously, I made it a point in individual tutorials with students early in the year to talk about the access they have to the services at UAL – offered confidentially to tackle problems they might be struggling with and that tailored support with difficulties will help their performance – this is in addition to the talks from the various departments as part of their orientation – academic support, language support, disability and mental health support. I would also highlight the importance of accessing support early in the undergraduate program rather than having to deal with it in a crisis or later on when the demands of the course get more challenging.
A student I taught in year one developed a disability at the end of her first year which led her to be wheelchair dependant. It is only recently she received a motorised wheelchair. I gave her online access to as many seminars, lectures and workshops as possible and worked with colleagues to offer her workshops in the studio as she is unable to access the darkrooms. This is now being addressed and building works have begun to rectify this. She has also highlighted that Careers and Employability at UAL needs to support disabled students with jobs all through the course of study.
Bibliography
Crenshaw, K. (1990) Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review 43 (6), pp.1241-1299
Art21 (2023) Christine Sun Kim in “Friends & Strangers”- Season 11 | Art 21. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NpRaEDlLsI&ab_channel=Art21 (Accessed 20 April 2024)
ParalympicsGB (2020) Ade Adepitan gives amazing explanation of systemic racism. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAsxndpgagU&ab_channel=ParalympicsGB (Accessed 20 April 2024)
Parapride (2023) Intersectionality in Focus: Empowering Voices during UK Disability History Month 2023. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yID8_s5tjc&t=4s&ab_channel=Parapride (Accessed 20 April 2024)
Sins Invalid (2020) What is Disability Justice? Sins Invalid. Available at: https://www.sinsinvalid.org/news-1/2020/6/16/what-is-disability-justice (Accessed 23 April 2024)
Dear Smriti, your blog post really hit a chord with me, given my work with Foundation students, some of which will continue to study in the course you teach on. As mentioned in my own post, there is a strong intersectionality between undiagnosed disabilities and the status of international student. In our course we always discuss support (academic, mental health and disability diagnosis) at each of the three one-to-one tutorials in the course of the academic year; the students we see in the first tutorial are exceptionally rarely the same we see subsequently, as tutor groups change when the students choose a specialism at the end of part 1 of the course. Unfortunately – and here I will state the obvious – it is the lack of sufficient quality time spent with each student we are the personal tutor of which really hinders the progress of the students reaching out for the suitable support once an issue is finally picked up. This is a difficult conundrum and I wonder if for those students progressing within UAL the outcomes (in terms of diagnosis and support) are at least better than those that study elsewhere, meaning that there is continuity within the institutions. If this were the case, I guess what the best route is for ensuring support is in place for a student going to another institution and ensure that the support is offered there too without delay.
Thank you for your response, Giulia. UAL does provide a lot of support. Given that to a lot of students accessing ‘academic support’ is something to feel ashamed about, I wonder if we need to change the nomenclature of the support we offer – academic support, disability support, language support – all of which lend themselves as ‘aids’ for special needs.
Hi Smitri,
Thank you for sharing your own experiences and thoughts. I agree, I think it’s very valuable to make students aware of the services at UAL, especially early in the course. From your own experience of studying and living in India, it notes the importance of understanding the disparities faced by intersectional identities to whom may face stigma from their diagnosis. The complexity of diagnosing disabilities particularly for students with English as an additional language, underlines the need for an ongoing discussion about improvements to our current support services.
Best,
Priscilla
Thank you for your response, Priscilla. Perhaps I should title this post ‘Reconsidering Disability’ and also talk about the problem with nomenclature – dis-ability – which is ableist. To reconsider renaming the support we offer. Rather than ‘support’ which is perceived more as aid for special needs, what if we were to rename these more positively to get students to seek it…
Firstly, your personal practice / work sounds great! I’d love to know more, and/or watch some of your work — nonfiction video without dialogue sounds both amazing and somewhat difficult to achieve? super exciting.
The points on privilege and acknowledgment of the privileges some of have was both humbling and inspiring.
Also, your unpacking and questioning of whether potential social stigma is a reason for the low declaration of differently abled international students was very interesting. I wonder whether we ever find out quite how many undiagnosed disabilities exist within the international student body? Or in what ways could we begin going about dismantling this stigma?
Hi Greg,
You can access my work on my website – http://www.smritimehra.com 🙂
Dismantling stigma is a very big task… especially when it is steeped in some cultures to the extent that it is. We must also remember that most international students who come here to study stay in the UK for a very limited period of time (thanks to government policies) and return home or to newer pastures. Personally, I think dismantling stigma starts with active conversations about it and in conjunction with narratives of people who experience it… storytelling is very powerful to examine beliefs and the consequences of those beliefs…