Still not quite final part deux

This blog follows part one: Nearly but not quite the end

Once the story was told, the ethnographic chapter, I was able to sit and reflect on what I had found striking about my visits and the story they helped narrate. This was the theoretical part of the work, using the analysis tool, the crip-sensitivity described earlier. It’s my ability to read into culture that helped me identify what made an organisation accountable - or a culture emancipatory. Moving from field to chair was more challenging than I’d anticipated. However, from the chair it became apparent that while the social model, as a theory, has been so successful at beginning a conversation about rights, it is overly simplistic when applied to the legitimacy an organisation can seek to respond to the growing insistence of activist to have a dialogue on rights. It is not wrong, it’s knowers need acknowledgement, but it can lack finesse and depth. Particularly, when applied to the articulation of accountability of organisations where workers are entering the private worlds of disabled people. Mainly because to be accountable, see previous post, workers straddle a market/citizen divide, in that they are visitors in people homes, treading as guests, therefore need to managed their power [thank you @NHS_RobW]. How do we then transfer what describes a respectful relationships into professionalism within strategic conversations. Conversations that talk about groups, their power and interest, rather than viewing disabled people as consumers in market where their citizenship is eroded. Talking about groups within an unequal society is an additional conversation, not an alternative one, the personal exchange still needs to be respectful. So sat in the chair, fingers poised on the keyboard, I began a reflexive process. I started in my mind with the words: what struck me.


I noticed, for example, that the welcome was far more attentive than those I am used to. It didn’t fade, it was a proactive, engaged and very intentional - sign that every worker takes radical hospitality seriously. ‘Bathing the room with sunshine’ was a phrase used to denote the worker’s intention to see the best in situations and the good in people. I sat alongside workers deliberate in both thought, and measured in their practice, with the energy they employed to anticipate the positive and celebrate the possible.

I also was struck by the number of times workers voiced their thinking and ideas. It was as though they had to ‘say it’ in order to remain vigilant against a culture that was toxic but also too compelling to ignore.  A deviant culture here, I noted, was not one of positive spin. Critically, positive stories were all about telling of the energy in the void, and highlighting an unacknowledged capacity. This was done with an enthusiasm for individuality I have seldom seen elsewhere. Unlike those who grasp at what they see as the upside of a negative, all too often often insulting in its bias and simplistic to the point of insult. What I saw was a real wish to appreciate the pleasure people enjoyed in their lives. This so obvious pleasure in sharing time and space was sustained in every exchange, without fuss or effort but with both humour and seriousness.

I noticed that the only thing that remained a constant was change! A state of flux was the norm, and trying to pin down what naturally moves was expressed as counter-culture.  All the conversations I took part in were underlined by an anticipation of continual shift, with this a realignment of existing patterns. This, I felt, ensured that what mattered to each person was kept alive, an acknowledged priority, because it was at the centre of current business. I loved the phrase ‘turn over the one-page-profile’, because all too often disabled people’s lives are limited by the paperwork that sets their position in stone. Thus crystallised any further progress is limited if not impossible. This is a real issue within the context of the Global Development Goals. How can we say to be emancipatory if we know that many are being held back by being held down.

In disability services, as in human services more widely.  Where support is turned into a paid commodity, money goes into the organisation and is then divided into silos before decisions are made about what it funds. Options are then made from piecemeal bits, never again to been seen as a myriad of choices to meet the variety of needs, wants and preferences of a population. Here money goes to the middle, to the disabled people the organisation serves, ensuring the power is always in the hands of those holding the purse.  As so many debates have shown, allowing people few options already constrained by crumbs within separate services, is not the same as asking people what to provide. Even where sometimes support to choose is required, the crux is having control. Please also note, these are very basic needs. The time people get up, shower, eat, take a walk, shop, or have a ciggy. Robbing people of dignity under the misdirection that none of us are totally free is grossly misreading the impact of abusive systems.

In short, I slowly worked towards a view of emancipatory practice as closely aligned to the human rights articulation if social justice. To counter injustice, emancipation needed to underpinned by a dismantling of institutionalisation. Therefore, best defined by independent living, anticipating a future with freedom, control, choice, and dignity, in the home, at work and in the community. This idea, I believe, sits right at the heart of accounting for society and the environment debates. Because, it positions a globe-local interest clearly, with the problems of the unsustainable nature of support provision.  Like so many other services dealing with human being within a market that eclipses the inequitable pressures above each individual, in the wider consumerist society within a neoliberal ideology. What I felt was emancipatory, was not about the disabled individual [empowerment was always only served by best practice], but about every action joining up to resist ableism more widely within the organisation. Even beyond its boundaries its impact can be felt, as if a bubble the culture acts as a shield of sorts, but also a beacon of hope acting as a possibility of what can be done. A decade ago the narrative didn’t allow such option, it was impossible by being unimaginable. It can be seen as in the same way as sexism rose above the issue of misogyny, sexism was the addition of the dimensions of institutional discrimination and systemic inequality that characterises women’s oppression - globally and in locality. This isn’t to say that hate crime against disabled people shouldn’t be tackled, but that without a fuller understanding of the ableism that feeds it it will be perceived as a personal dislike not a human rights crisis. I would argue the later needs to be part of the accounting profession’s cris de cœur, a passionate stand for equality in a climate that does little to address it.

To be continued

And to end…

Nearly .... but not quite the end

Accountability, sustainability and the political voice of disabled people.  Whose voice is it anyway?

The question that brought me to my PhD work was born out of a professional hunch. Having worked in countless disability organisations, not all Disabled People’s Organisations, but across sectors and institutions providing services to disabled people, I was always puzzled by the lack of words to articulate the interests of the disabled population. Also, given the growth of interests in protected characteristics under equality legislation, I often asked myself why the interests of disabled people were so neglected. In Scotland more specifically, where human rights seem to be very much on the agenda, the vocabulary used to talk about disability is blunt, clunky and confusing. As a disabled person the issue may seem less pronounced than it was when I put my working hat on. Not every disabled person is required to be well versed in disability politics, but as an Disability Equality and Equality & Diversity practitioner the absence of reference to a movement or field of study highlights a significant absence in the field of human rights, and therefore in that of accounting for society and the environment. In common terms, at any conference the disability stuff is often an afterthought, an additional paper or ignored altogether. Even at Equality & Diversity events you can spot the disability workshop as it has the fewest participants.

Where does this journey begin, if not long before I took up the intention to travel. I have been around a block or two in my time. More specifically as an academic, the road has been uneven, often challenging and barred at times. But having jumped the Masters hurdle with a modicum of grace, I approached the ‘thesis’ opportunity with more excitement than trepidation... [“you fool!” Indeed]. I was acutely aware of being in a privileged position and set off with joyful steps...

In terms of scene setting, I’d worked as a facilitator, speaker and occasional writer on equality, leadership and social justice for many years. So I had already built a little knowledge, I had spoken with, and read the thinking of many knowers. A lot of my understanding of disability came from personal experience, but increasingly my knowledge was built on academic theory, some based on research evidence, and a wealth of professional wisdom gleaned from stories from shared through a global network. So I’d come laden, if shambolic and chaotic in appearance, my luggage was packed...  I thought I was prepared. I wasn’t. This particular leg in an otherwise rather haphazard and unguided journey was a very different trip indeed!  I soon realised it would mean jettisoning the stuff that weighed me down, however precious, and collecting far more than I had ever anticipated. I literally had to unpack the gathered clutter, sort it, and reassemble it in a more structured way.

What did emerge quite quickly was a sense of the scale of the ‘thing’ I was exploring. Although I knew a great deal of intertwined stuff relating to disability, I struggled to spell out why it was important to accounting for society and the environment specifically- because I felt it was!  Working on a hunch I set out to find the research relating to disabled people’s lives from an academic perspective. To say sparse would underplay the emptiness of the void. I had expected little, but nothing was far worse, because without any evidence there is no story at all. Without a story, all possible future storytelling is devoid of grounding - the authenticity that makes it authoritative. Research did evidence what disabled people were thought to lack. However, as I was going to have to labour over, finding a voice that represents a population requires far more than a personal voice - or even many.  Research evidence, personal experience, and professional wisdom are required in equitable measures, for their unique contribution to the validity of evidence based knowledge. (That’s epistemological justice to the boffin). The challenge is to then use this mix as an analysis tool.

To articulate an unique sensitivity, I set out to define its different elements, with the aim to tell a history of disabled people’s fight for rights. More specifically this dis-story (see what I did there) would tell the struggle for a more egalitarian participation in world affairs. Sadly, this story, told here by me - an unreliable author - explores the many interests often hidden from view, those in the void.  For those familiar with disabled people, their families and community the story is old news. However, I am constantly surprised by those totally unaware of the extensive narrative, the troubling and courageous story of so many disabled storytellers.


The authority with which I wanted to hold myself accountable, was neither personal, singular or without professionalism. I wanted to narrate, from a privileged position admittedly, the shared story of many authors, with full acknowledgement of an already long path trodden by travellers with liberating ideas, common interests and a defined purpose. So once I had worked through piles of academic literature, sometimes hundreds of abstracts a week, I sought alternative sources. Because out of the hundreds of academic papers too few looked into the void. I did find a story in a variety of other mediums, books, blogs, conference presentations and videos, these helped to complement or confound the academic narrative I had found lacking in authority. I already knew how singular my own understanding was, unsurprisingly given my individual path. But lots of things supplemented my own truth, many giving me a sense of perspective on events I felt were only true to me. Therefore, overall I was able to paint the character the injustice levelled at disabled people in our society,  the impact of the orthotoxic environment we are all steeped in (that’s orthodox and toxic btw).  Orthotoxicity may best be described as a discord, a lack of congruence, with a growing individualist and consumerist view of the good of growth. An unsustainable development, giving rise to a paradoxically hostile world we seem to crave increasingly - without questioning why. A world in which most of us are not sensitive to its injustice, and can therefore ignore its harm without effort.

Unsustainable development, based on efficiency and devoid of sensitivity to those in recipients in dire circumstances, unfortunately gives rise to policy based on assumptions and bias. Responding to the stereotypes of disabled people being deficient and needy, institutionalisation is cheaper solution to a problem, and ableist response in a materialistic society unwilling to consider more effective approaches to inclusion.

I was particularly struck by evidence of the following:
- The numbers of disabled people are huge, yet their experience is oddly viewed as insignificant in community life in general;
- Globally, economic, cultural and political power influences local outcomes, but all too often it is not perceived as harmful to those suffering or flourishing;
- The power of the expert, carried in the neutrality of technical mindsets, still trumps the robust evidence of it inflicting harm and misery;
- Growth in market measures still carries a positive and a numeric value even where is creates inequality and misery - organisational rules do not shift for the sake of justice.
- Privilege is poorly articulated, in that unwittingly the hum of the systemic machine, societal chatter still imposes harm on those vulnerable in the face of a silenced unrest, public outrage still focuses on individual deficit, or worse disagreeable reaction by unbearable circumstances.

My research took me to a place where orthotoxic assumption is challenged. I was already working with a space I viewed as deviant organisation. Here accountability was expressed in terms of disabled people’s leadership, money was owned through individual budgets, and a human rights framework supported independence and encouraged liberation from the harm of institutionalisation. The interests of a population formerly abused by systemic power was central to business, and where freedom, choice and control was respected. As Alice, I stepped through a looking-glass, exposed to a world that was upside down and back to front. One that I perceives as atypically comfortable, kind and unusually safe. The culture, or web of understanding, had an unique character that was rich and generous, a pleasure to explore. Although, whilst appearing simple, complex notions such as human rights and Person Centred Planing, underpinned the most simple action. As the reflection on the ethnographic text the immersion supplied showed, simplicity is far from easy when particularly when challenges layers of engrained attitude driven by the orthotoxic morass described above.

More in part 2!

A suivre!

Thank you to the women!

Here’s to the fiery ones!

Those who fill the tank, refresh the engine and oil the wheels! The reason I keep running!

Many have stepped forward over the years to make life sweet when it was hard. I Thank you to the women!

Here’s to the women! Those who fill the tank, refresh the engine and oil the wheels!!

Many have stepped forward over the years to make life sweet when it was hard. I thank these women, they are the leaders. Here is a cheer, a thank you, an acknowledgement of gratitude!!

It takes a little thought to step up, look around, see who’s struggling and offer at hand. A gentle push, an enthusiast round of applause, a kind hug, a holding hand! Leadership activity of a feminist nature is so often characterist by empathy, thought and shared interest. I think it stands so powerfully against the raging machismo and abuse of power splashed across the front pages, screens and time lines. Thank you to the women that keep me strong, happy, wanted ... in! Those who check I’m ok, in, wanted, invited and welcomed.

It takes consideration to understand one’s privileged position and put it to good use. To know the power we hold, look around and put ourselves in the shoes of those less fortunate, comfortable, happy, and pain free. We don’t know what inhibits women’s potential to flourish, but effort to acknowledge and encourage is not going to harm those already ready to fly. But for those struggling it can change an hour, a day, a week, a year...

Thank you also to the men, those also acknowledging the gaps, the inequality, the discrimination and injustice weighing down on women! The feminists, activists, and community shakers. Speaking out, teaching peers, raising generations to be kind with their strength, sensitive with their power, generous with their privilege.


It takes a little thought to step up sometimes, to look around, to find those struggling, and to offer a helping hand. A gentle push, an enthusiast round of applause, a kind hug, or a holding space! Leadership activity, one of a feminist nature, is so often characterist by empathy. A reflexive thought, a spirited action and a shared interest. I think it stands so powerfully against the raging machismo and abuse of power splashed across the front pages, screens and timelines in the current age. 

Here's a personal thank you to the women that keep me strong, happy, wanted ... in! Those who check I’m ok, I'm in... wanted, invited and welcome.

It takes consideration to understand one’s own privileged position and put it to good use. To know the power we hold, look around and put ourselves in the shoes of those less fortunate, comfortable, happy, and pain free. We don’t know what inhibits women’s potential to flourish, but effort to acknowledge and encourage is not going to harm those already ready to fly. But for those struggling it can change an hour, a day, a week, a year...

Thank you also to the men, those who also acknowledge the gaps, the inequality, the discrimination and injustice weighing women down! LOUDLY!

The feminists, activists, and community builders! Speaking out, teaching peers, raising generations to be kind with their strength, sensitive with their power, and generous with their privilege.

Have happy days, I thank you!!