Being part of a bigger conversation

A few thoughts on a shortened visit to the British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society conference #belmas2016.

It's been a busy time, conferences, AGMs and board meetings... I'm struggling physically but I gain so much from the conversations I join it would be very sad to miss out. My areas of activity are diverse, because my interests are eclectic, but they make sense to me given my background and experience. I'm interested in educational leadership because of my passion for inclusive education and special educational needs. I have an interest in organisations supporting disabled people because I too am disabled and have facilitated disability equality sessions across a number of sectors for many years. I am also chair an organisation that supports people in receipt of domestic violence, because I have seen its ravages close up and I have sought to understand the social inequality that feeds violence  across localities. Below is a linear representation of how my ideas fit together; yes an intentangled mess - but that's ok!!

  

Last Friday at the BELMAS conference I was struck by how important it was to be part of a research community as a budding researcher. Being part of an interest group is important, and recognising the work of others is critical, avoiding silos is pivotal. For me conferences are about seeing where my work fits, hearing about different perspectives, and acknowledging the interconnectivity of a bigger whole.  It's a precarious balance of courageous contribution and humble interest (no easy for a shaky woman!), it’s hard work for any doctoral student wanting to belong to the bigger club. Over the years my strength has grown as I've learned about new ideas and a different language - I can now joke about high-brow concepts! (Bad humour in any language). 

The danger as a researcher I think, particularly one with an activist heart, is that you overstate the importance of your own interest(s). This tendency, while understandable because of the enormous amount of work needed to secure a knowledge base, can impose a binary view of the world within wider debates. For example, being a feminist might impose a man-woman view of the world, which left unchecked effaces the diversity women as a group (thank you Marianne Coleman). And while lip service may be paid to LGBT, disabled and Black communities within the group, individuals can easily become marginalised by a group agenda fought too radically. From personal experience, I feel that as a disabled woman I don't want to be a secondary member of any group but a all-round thinker in lots.... And then a few more!

 I think intersectionality is critical to measured debate. Personally I seek to recognise my own limitations in many areas, the boundaries help me define my authenticity as an unreliable narrator - It's possibly all we can ever be. I don't think my hesitation is a weakness, au contraire it's an acknowledgment of limitation and a definition of subjectivity. Being gentle and aware of different views allows me to hear a number of voices at once. I hope to be kind without a need of alignment, I hope to acknowledge what I don't experience – values and ideas. Flexibility, moving beyond a two-sided choice, allows me to understand that we all face different obstacles. Some more than others!!!  It’s cumulative and often not of equal size; and without a move to understand the thinking of other groups we are not treating those within ours with equity. Because without an understanding of feminist, critical race, queer or crip theory - ANY research perspective runs a risk of being oppressive - take your pick. 

I feel that no identity is purely a one-ended choice along a spectrum, I feel our identities are multifaceted, we stress aspects of our being to secure belonging in a never ending performance - a dance that changes with every partner(s). In many of my relationships disability doesn't feature, it's not that I cease to be disabled, it's just that other brilliant parts of my being come into play... Being in a place where I feel wanted is a game changer! My own identity has changed over the years, from young to older, my being is fluid and rarely static! (2nd CP joke)

At this point I collapsed, was showered with kindness, but had to leave… makes you wonder what 2 days thinking would look like!

Where people natter, conversations count!

Thoughts on a gathering: #TD16praxis Posthuman Realness

It was a great pleasure to join teachers at Northern College yesterday for a day of joyous thinking. Today a few ideas have been popping into my head, things I feel I didn't express clearly yesterday…

From a sustainability perspective, I think we are facing many crises. To deal with them, with hope and positivity, we urgently need to natter! We need to voice what matters to us, because storytelling is vital to learning about what we value and the change we need to make. Nattering is important to the issue of addressing social justice and inequality in a changing culture, because as activists have in the past, it's time to be courageous, to speak up!

I think that unchecked growth, and its capitalist narrative, is imposing harm and inhumanity to the growing inequality across the globe and adding to the already unfair dis/advantage within localities. In conversations, the ideas in welfare debates and the spin for austerity measures, is establishing a view that some groups need to deserve their entitlement to human rights...  BOLLOCKS! Like many activists before me, I believe the time has come to really listen to the hardest to hear.

There are many groups we need to listen to, young people, older people, people of working class, people of colour.... disabled people need to be heard too! It's not a binary choice, disabled people are poor, Black, gay, middle class .... If we understand it as an either/or option, disabled people will always remain othered by difference, not capable of power or beneficiaries of privilege. 

I think disabled people are in crisis, due to funding cutbacks some are being denied the essential support that secures a dignified life. Furthermore, as they are vilified by rhetoric, their voices and views are being pushed out of globally important conversations about wider issues. The very conversations that would help secure their inclusion, their belonging and their well-being. Disabilism is specific, but also a symptom of a greater crisis.

 Slavery wasn’t a crisis for British and American elites until abolitionism turned it into one. Racial discrimination wasn’t a crisis until the civil rights movement turned it into one. Sex discrimination wasn’t a crisis until feminism turned it into one. Apartheid wasn’t a crisis until the anti-apartheid movement turned it into one.  (Klein, 2014, loc 190)

Disablism isn’t a crisis many can articulate,  our language needs refining - as I’ve explored before (A world of difference). There are too few words to define the multi-layered impact and intersectional aspects of disability adequately. The word ‘Disability’ is used to mean  many things, from personal predicament to social pressures. However disablism is blighting the lives of a large number of human beings. People are being rejected, vilified and dehumanised, through the acts of segregation, institutionalisation, and alienation, disabled people are in receipt of a complex crisis!! 

Having unpacked the subdivision of the public sphere, in Life’s 3 conversations, I now want to explore why I think it's important to value all conversations represented below equally in order to articulate equity more adequately in the context of this crisis. Please note, that the lives and their conversations are a tricky balance for anyone, but they should not be seen as conversations for different people. We all have a voice in associational, professional and political spheres. This way of viewing life as lives, for me, interrupts a 'them' and 'us' mentality so prevalent in the way we talk about democracy and change these days. We need to acknowledge our presence and power in all spheres - even if we choose not to speak.

The way our written and spoken words are shared in public [in reports, documents, social media, press releases] gives ideas and interests power. The way we increasingly talk about cost, for example, denies the worth of shared experience and the value of philosophical ideas. Yet mutual exchange, joint benefit, and shared exploration of possible futures can't be costed – they are priceless (Sandel). Written words have an impact on our lives, because they frame the experience of people across communities. The focuses on cost in an annual report could have an impact on how we understand ‘care’; in turn this affects the interpretation of what has worth or value for the people in receipt a service provided. A financial narrative, a market conversation stripped of interest or philosophical ideas, reduces the worth and value in our lives to what solely can be monetised - cost. This insidious aspect of capitalist ideology, if unchallenged or disrupted, allows the idea that growth is always a good thing and that non-productive beings have little value. Because the quantified stays in focus, while the qualified fades from view - cost is visible, whilst worth or value becomes obscured.

Language helps us redefine meaning, as the words we use are those that describe the reality we experience, which then frames our worlds. Why understanding comes fluency and nuance, the more we know about an interest or skill, the more specific and able we become at expressing complexity. At a philosophical level (citizen conversation), exploring the imaginary or possible scenarios, involves talking about significant concepts with great depth of understanding (Shohamy, 2006).  

When Viewed as social action, words the can also be understood as tools (Wilson, 1956), with purposes that change according to the place they are used. I use disabled not ‘with a disability’ for a huge number of reasons – these are far more complex and inter-tangled that the binary option of my short hand. Language, I think, can also be viewed as a flexible connection between people, a shared reference to bigger ideas and an expression of common culture. From a research standpoint we cannot stand outside culture, we bathe in it even as an outsider: '… culture turns personal. Culture is no longer just what some group has; it's what happens to you when you encounter differences, become aware of something in yourself' (Agar, 1994, p. 20). Dialogue, or dialogic activity, is never correct nor static, but a fluid position in emerging thought.  [In academic terms some talk of ‘languaging’ or ‘languaculture’ to refer to the broader conceptualisation of discourse.]

If conversations within organisations have an impact on the people they serve and our society [blue arrows above], then we need to hear every group thoroughly in order to respond with ability to their interests. This idea of being account-able, underpins the activity of storytelling that is democratic process. The action taken to involve members from marginalised groups then changes a shared narrative. Even if I can’t consult a whole group, I can consider their political message. Where the privilege of a majority, expressed as a single view, is disrupted by the strength of group power [however small in number] there is possibility of emancipation. Where this has failed speaking on behalf of group has denied their agenda  - denying empowerment in the process. A liberating conversation, is one that includes different lives equally, it supports an ongoing re-negotiation of ideas, a mindful toggle between group interest and personal experience, which could help us define a more equitable culture in an ever-changing context.

For the disabled community inequality can be expressed in different ways, or at different levels. Looking down the triangle, as Thompson (2007) offers, the weight of social ideas, and the widespread nature of institutional discrimination (cultural oppression), add to the negative belief that prompt reactions and drive bias in relationships. [this links to the 'othering' discussed in the ideas Lou shared on Posthumanism here] More saliently, if disabled people's voices are ignored, their views hushed or their interests ridiculed - we have a problem. Presently, as evidence suggests, disabled people are far less likely to be in employment  - making it less likely to be able to participate in community or state live - because of relative poverty (19% of individuals in families with at least one disabled member live in relative income poverty). Therefore, having most impact when negotiating barriers and bigger demands on efforts (Spoon Theory). In short, as a market thinking takes up increasing room in our lives, it invades associational and political spaces, thereby decreasing the likelihood of disabled people being heard in the typical conversations the change our world. From a personal perspective, by not having a job I may be less able to be a good neighbour or a proactive activist within networks of interest. The pressure on the individual, the oppression weighing on disabled individuals, illustrated by the blue arrows, builds both from above and the sides (see below).

Why these gatherings matter? Because while using dialogue to avoid hierarchy and authority is not a new idea, more nattering in all lives’ conversation is needed to establish shared meaning. We need less discussion, the binary polarisation, that leads to conflict! We need dialogue, to deal with the exploring that goes with learning. A useful democratic process enabling collective thought and the coproduction we require for new shape (Bohm, 1996; Issacs, 1999).  As we experienced yesterday, '… dialogue is a conversation in which people think together in relationship. Thinking together implies that you no longer take your own position as final. You relax your grip on certainty and listen to the possibilities that result simply from being in a relationship with others—possibilities that might not otherwise have occurred' (Issacs, 1999, p. 148).

Viewed as an exchange of ideas about what matters, conversations may facilitate our ability to be account-able - or able to tell a common story - facilitating democratic thinking or joint visioning. Our nattering could support hope and positive change by a process of reaffirming shared ideas,  enabling change and securing direction. However, this requires a fluency across community, market and state conversation and a willingness to expand on shared knowledges and difference of experience and opinion. The negotiate what qualifies as having worth now and what gives meaning and value in the future. In conversation, the interaction and the exchange of ideas, the very choice of words, will change the interest of groups.  As Zeldin puts it:

Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don’t just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversations don’t just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards. … it’s like a spark that two minds create... (1998, p. 14)


For my part I intend to be braver in this conversation, more courageous, and less afraid of ridicule!! Thank you Northern College, Colleagues, Friends and fellow Activists… 











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