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Geert Van Hove (he/him), University of Ghent

Geert Van Hove is an Emeritus Professor at Ghent University (Disability Studies). For the last 25 years, he has been closely involved with families involving their child with disabilities into mainstream schools and with the Flemish Self-advocacy movement. He is a basketball-lover, a jazz cat and a passionate cyclist.

Bio: I am a (just) retired University Professor at Ghent University in the field of Disability Studies. I am a daily bicycle user (no racing, just functional, living without a car). I am a basketball addict (played myself when I was young, now watching games of my son and grandson). I am a jazz cat and into the Beatles and Tom Waits.

For the video recording of this presentation, please see the online symposia page.

It is quite an honor to contribute to these seminars together with colleagues and at the same time to be challenged to seek an answer to the question: ...how is your area of research, theory and scholarship transformed by an engagement with (critical) disability studies?....

Between 1975 and 1980 I learned how to become a special education expert. After getting my diploma I started a supported living project for persons with learning/intellectual disabilities. This was my ‘rescue’: there were no groups, there was no campus, the adults we supported became our experts. In 1994 I had the opportunity to help closing an institution in the Netherlands, one of the most exciting things I ever was involved in.

I will join you in searching for temporary answers and will do so based on a structure linked to three historical statements, being:

1. ...Free at last, Free at last... (Martin Luther King Jr., 1963)

2…. It is the economy stupid… (James Carville in the Bill Clinton Campaign, 1992)

3…. If you talk the talk, you should walk the walk… (from an Ohio Newspaper, 1921)

1. Disability Studies and the emphasis on 'equal participation' (Nancy Fraser) of persons with labels focuses on empowerment and liberation; but it also has a liberating effect for researchers in the field of Disability Studies (as I position myself): researchers are allowed to leave their old position: they get the permission, even feel the need, to say goodbye to the old 'expert position'. This upheaval has led to :

- Problems are defined differently. No longer the impairments are the main problem or obstacle. Making use of a process of 'conscientization (Freire, 2000) we learn every day to observe and analyze obstacles in attitudes, (school) culture, the training of 'experts', discriminatory practices,....

- Solutions are defined differently. We do not longer need to take the role of 'objective and detached' professionals (those who most of the time offer 'standard solutions'). Instead, we learn to become 'companions' who built actions together - based on dialogical action and reflection - .

- Roles are defined differently. Persons with labels and their networks are no longer 'docile acceptors' (Freire, 2004). We are challenged to act as allies to concretize the dreams and pans of those we serve/we work and live with.

2. If we strip the second statement of its ableist caricature and bend it to our will we translate it as follows: 'it is all about stories, you know'. We have the privilege of working with two founding mothers of narrative research: Jean Clandinin and Vera Caine. For them, ...Thinking narratively is introduced to challenge the dominant narratives of a phenomenon (here: disability). We all know that in an ableist world, narratives of "normality" and what is expected of a "good citizen" circulate and set the tone. Listening to and capturing stories gives 'counter narratives' the opportunity to stand alongside the dominant narratives. People tell about their experiences; this provides opportunities to understand how individual experiences run together and are influenced by narratives within a given culture, social environment, and period. In several projects we have listened to and deployed stories from parents of children with a label/ from the people themselves. Here we draw on the insights of Fricker concerning 'epistemic injustice'. In her book she argues that there is a distinctively epistemic genus of injustice, in which someone is wronged specifically in their capacity as a knower, wronged therefore in a capacity essential to human value. In doing so, it charts the ethical dimension of two fundamental epistemic practices: gaining knowledge by being told and making sense of our social experiences.  In the past, people with a label were often seen as those who "cannot know," this was sometimes due to communication barriers or to the assumption that they were unable to tell a coherent story. In our 'Without Borders' project where (so far) some 70 people talk about where they are/are not welcome, we did get compelling, accurate stories where we learn two things in particular:

1) If we don't start taking deep-structural measures and keep fiddling at the margins, it is very difficult to meet the conditions to achieve equal participation. Fraser's insights on 'redistribution' - 'recognition' and 'representation' are helpful here.

2) If we take the stories seriously, we can see what 'disability as more' can instill (Titchkosky). The visual thinkers, the activists, those who challenge bodies without disabilities in dance performances, those who act from a wheelchair (without this vehicle being important for the play in which they act), those who devote much of their free time to assisting people in their community, those who testify about their situation, ..... share something and make a difference.

3. Our third historical statement brings us to one of highest challenges in Disability Studies: the real sharing of power. Let me clarify this with a thumbnail-story.... as a teacher, I regularly invite guest speakers. One of my beloved speakers is Sybille who brings her story of her inclusive education journey to teacher education students every year. She is always nicely on time; she looks forward to the class, puts on her most recently purchased outfit and is always well prepared with a power point. A few years back, I invited her again and got a "yes" message back within the hour. I asked her if we had to prepare and got a 'no' back. (She felt she could start from the existing power point) The evening itself, Sybille is her ravishing self in an auditorium with 200 students looking forward to the story of an expert by experience. I get all the technical stuff ready (micro, beamer, computer,...) ask Sybille if she needs anything to drink and almost start introducing her to the audience.... Sybille asks if I can understand that she no longer feels like talking about her school career, that she has graduated for four years now anyway and wants to leave the school days behind her.... I get into my “panic-modus”,  I try to remind her about the student expectations.... she smiles and says : you know I want to talk about my week, what I do at work and what I do with friends and family, I brought a ppt about that.... my stress level drops a little bit.... she smiles again and says: you may well ask me what I learned in school that helps to plan and get through my week.... don't be nervous....

Now and then I miss in some Disability Studies projects/texts the spirit of the painting ‘Les Demoiselles D’Avignon’ of Pablo Picasso: as we know Picasso made sure to juxtapose all kinds of conflicting elements in the painting. For example, the rounded shapes of the women contrast with exaggeratedly pointed painted body parts…—> can we make sure we have attention to as much as possible ‘conflicting’ parts in a project/text? and can this help us to reflect upon the confusion/chaos/disruption we organize by bringing in Disability Studies in an environment that is surely not ready for it.