I agree that disability issues are discussed for rather than with us compared to other forms of activism. OTOH I also think that paternalism in health services and depoliticizing disability advocacy is heavily reliant on employing PWD staff in tokenising ways, to gatekeep each other.

So I’m less concerned whether an academic is a PWD than what their politics and methodology are on how to research PWD’s cultural practice and work with PWD.

That lack of access for PWD on a campus to participate [or become academics!] is a pretty major issue though.

It is interesting, and notable, that the issue of whether the speakers actually have disabilities or not doesn’t seem to be considered important. (From where I’m lying.) Imagine organising a seminar on racism with mostly white speakers, or a seminar on feminism with mostly male speakers. Yet many activists don’t see to view disability activism through the same lens.

I completely agree that access for people in wheelchairs and with other physical disabilities is far from covering the needs of all people with disabilities – I just mentioned that example because I teach in that lecture theatre a fair bit and have noticed the mechanical desk put to good use a student who is in a wheelchair. Nor, I should add, am I suggesting UWA should be immune from criticism – criticism is, indeed, helpful as it flags areas where improvement can be made.

In terms of UniAccess, I can only comment from fairly limited experience of how they operate, but for one student I know, at least, they managed to remove one substantial barrier to access. I’m sorry to hear your experiences with them haven’t been positive – I hope that your experience has served as a catalyst to get UniAccess working to try and address those needs in the future.

To be honest, reading from your LJ (the blog I got a trackback from gave me a “Bandwidth Limit Exceeded” notice for some reason), I’m disappointed with the response you got from the Institute for Advanced Studies and can completely understand why you’d be seriously unimpressed, especially in relation to a symposium which, one imagines, will definitely have accessibility as one of its core issues. If you’ve not done so already and you’d still like to be involved in the symposium, I’d suggest you contact Bev Hill, the manager of the Equity and Diversity Office. I’ve worked with Bev on an unrelated equity project at UWA, and she’s always struck me as very keen to ensure UWA lives up to the rhetoric of inclusivity it teaches.

As to the symposium itself, I’m really not if anyone presenting is a person with a disability or not. (I should add I’m not involved in organizing the symposium or the lecture – I’ve just re-posting the publicity material I was sent since I thought it might be of interest to someone who reads this blog.)

If you do pursue getting access to the symposium, I wish you the best of luck! As an entry-level lecturer on a short-term contact, I don’t have much clout around campus, but if I can be of help, do let me know.

Wheelchair access is not the only accessibility issue. “It’s not perfect”? Yeah, it’s not. What’s being done about it? Making limited efforts for only certain people with certain disabilities doesn’t make UWA immune from criticism.

The bottom line is that I’m being treated as a passive listener, not a potential participant. And despite me being a triple alumnus of this very university. This from a university that is supposedly trying to get me to come back to do Honours? It’s a slap.

Is anyone in the symposium a person with a disability, or is it all people talking about us? The bios contain only formal “qualifications”, as though actual experience is insignificant and irrelevant.

You know what – the email I got back didn’t even contain a “sorry”.

(Please don’t call me “Laura”. Ta.)

What this says to me is that people with disabilities are part of the passive, listening “public”, but they’re not actually part of discussing possible solutions to disability access, if involving them costs actual money or time or energy.

Har har har.