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I attended a very interesting conference last month in Sydney, which, although initiated by Australians, was aimed at developing collaboration among those involved in disability studies in the so-called ‘Global South’. That includes the countries in the Asia/Pacific including Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Its purpose was to set a disability research agenda for our region which has some significant differences from the Global North (mainly the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe). It was also a gentle challenge to the hegemony of disability scholarship from the North.

A keynote was given by Dr Martin Sullivan who teaches New Zealand’s only dedicated Disability Studies course, at Massey University in Palmerston North. His paper ‘Thinking disability studies in Aotearoa in the 21^st century’ paid tribute to disability research pioneers who died last year: Professor Anne Bray from the Donald Beasley Institute in Dunedin and Dr Christopher Newell, from the University of Tasmania. They had also both supported the idea of a collaborative trans-Tasman disability studies journal. Dr Sullivan’s talk promoted the Treaty of Waitangi – with its principles of partnership, participation and protection – as a partnership model for collaboration between government and disabled people, and considered the 2001 New Zealand Disability Strategy as an example of a ‘treaty’ between government and disabled people. He suggested that disabled Maori people identify as Maori first and it is not appropriate for pakeha to research the experience of Maori disability.

Reactions to his talk illustrated cultural differences between New Zealand and Australia. The Treaty of Waitangi principle of ‘protection’ was problematic for Australians. In New Zealand it means protection of citizenship rights, but its Australian connotation is the paternalistic justification for the stolen Aboriginal children. However, conference attendees were very interested in our NZ Disability Strategy and the fact that government departments have to report against it and each objective every year (see the reports on the Office for Disability Issues website www.odi.govt.nz).

How we might jointly monitor the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was a topical subject for the conference. Lana Moriarty from Victoria University gave a paper on her recent research into New Zealand’s contribution to the development of the UN convention for which she had interviewed several of the New Zealand participants.

Highlights of the conference for me included presentations from researchers with intellectual impairment. Exciting self- advocacy research projects are happening in Victoria and New South Wales. In Geelong a café and catering company employs many people with intellectual impairment, and also provides training and support for employees to move into mainstream employment. The workers are also involved in governance and management of the operation, and also research and evaluation projects. (I would love to develop this model for an Aspie café and research enterprise in New Zealand. They were very keen to come over and help!)

Another presentation outlined research on disabled childrens’ use of a playground which included revelations of the rich imaginary world of the apparently loner autistic child.

A new field of disability (and cultural) studies is called ‘Listening’ which has been aided by technological developments enabling people with sensory and other impairments to tell their lived experience and have more agency over their own lives. Professor of Digital Communication at the University of New South Wales, Dr Gerard Goggin, has led research on this. I see great potential here for encouraging us non autistics to listen to what non verbal and other autistic people have to say about their lived experiences and how we can support them as experts on their lives.

The third day of the conference was a workshop for the non Australian attendees. This included participants from countries including China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Samoa, Solomon Islands. (Unfortunately, Swine flu fears had prevented others from attending). Although they were academics in the field of disability studies, many also had personal or family experience of disability. This was a fascinating day for me as I learnt so much about the challenges of disability research from around our region, for example the vital contribution of NZAid to disabled women’s organisations in the Pacific. One man worked with an international organisation promoting the right to play for disabled children in Beijing. I participated in a discussion on inclusive education. This is an area we all wanted to see implemented, and we agreed that inclusive education should be universal, life-long and benefits the whole society. But the reality is that for advocates in many countries there are sizeable challenges getting disabled children to school at all. Sharing success stories and using role models might be one way we can help each other across the region. Hopefully, international research collaborations will come out of this seminar day.

I also found that everybody, regardless of country, is knowledgeable about, and fascinated with autism. It seems to be a growing policy and service challenge everywhere. There was a great deal of interest in our New Zealand Autism Spectrum Disorder Guideline. Our centralised system of government has certainly helped getting us this far. Most countries have more fragmented systems of public governance, such as the lack of consistency between Australian states.

The conference was sponsored by the Disability Research Centre at the University of Sydney and the Australian Government’s Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. This conference showed the value of such opportunities to share research and innovations. The next step is hopefully the establishment of a collaborative Disability Studies journal.

One new term for me, and apparently the next big thing, is ‘cosmetic neurology’. I don’t really understand what it is but it sounds like something that autism advocates should be wary about.