Dy­lan Ker­ri­g­an

Last week the Rep­sol T&T an­nounced its part­ner­ship with the He­roes Foun­da­tion to pro­mote so­cial in­te­gra­tion of the dif­fer­ent­ly-abled in lo­cal sec­ondary schools.Such projects are small steps for­ward with an im­por­tant mes­sage to dwell on.The term "dis­abil­i­ty" does not mean ab­nor­mal. More ac­cu­rate­ly it is an um­brel­la term (in­tel­lec­tu­al, vi­su­al, hear­ing, phys­i­cal) for im­pair­ments, ac­tiv­i­ty lim­i­ta­tions and par­tic­i­pa­tion re­stric­tions.

Like any­one, peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties have their own unique iden­ti­ty and abil­i­ties. It is wider so­ci­ety that of­ten mis­un­der­stands this.

A sim­ple anal­o­gy for this is that most cities and so­ci­eties are in them­selves flawed. They can­not, and for the most part do not, with any great suc­cess ac­com­mo­date a dif­fer­ent­ly-abled pop­u­la­tion. In the con­text of the ar­chi­tec­ture of ur­ban plan­ning, if plan­ners do not de­sign cross­walks or pave­ments to ac­com­mo­date dif­fer­ence in abil­i­ties, a vi­su­al im­pair­ment can quite quick­ly trans­form in­to a dis­abling so­cial bar­ri­er.

This more of­ten than not ex­ac­er­bates a per­son's im­pair­ment in­to a hand­i­cap. What in an ide­al world might be cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences in the way peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence the world can be­come re­al-life, hu­man rights im­ped­i­ments.In sim­ple terms, our build­ings like schools, jails, law courts, and our trans­port in­fra­struc­ture was and is de­signed with the onus placed on a par­tic­u­lar idea about abil­i­ties over one that in­cludes all peo­ple.

As such, the needs and ex­pe­ri­ences of many peo­ple who are dif­fer­ent­ly-abled are for the most part not in­te­grat­ed suc­cess­ful­ly in­to the day-to-day life of mod­ern T&T.In 2009 the for­mer Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment re­port­ed a to­tal of 58,383 peo­ple liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ties but, due to mis­di­ag­no­sis and mis­re­port­ing, the pop­u­la­tion is thought to be much larg­er. It is al­so very di­verse.

The var­ied ex­pe­ri­ence of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties has in­creas­ing­ly drawn an­thro­pol­o­gists in­ter­est­ed in dif­fer­ence, oth­er­ness, and those who so­ci­ety makes in­vis­i­ble and pow­er­less, not least be­cause it re­veals in­for­ma­tion about pow­er re­la­tions in the wider so­ci­ety it­self.Dis­abil­i­ty schol­ar­ship us­es a num­ber of dif­fer­ent mod­els of dis­abil­i­ty and im­pair­ment. For ex­am­ple, the an­thro­pol­o­gist de­scribes dis­abil­i­ty as a so­cial and cul­tur­al­ly-con­struct­ed cat­e­go­ry.

By that is meant an in­di­vid­ual suf­fers im­pair­ment or is dis­abled when they ex­pe­ri­ence, or are per­ceived by oth­ers to ex­pe­ri­ence, psy­cho­log­i­cal, be­hav­iour­al or phys­i­o­log­i­cal con­di­tions that are de­fined as a neg­a­tive, func­tion­al prob­lem by the wider so­ci­ety.Yet not all so­ci­eties iden­ti­fy func­tion­al lim­i­ta­tions as dis­abling to the same de­gree.

Cul­ture, pow­er, and stig­ma all play lo­cal roles in the per­cep­tion of what is a dis­abil­i­ty or not. In oth­er words a dis­abil­i­ty might not be a hand­i­cap de­pend­ing on how a so­ci­ety man­ages dis­crim­i­na­tion and op­pres­sion of those who are dif­fer­ent­ly-abled.

In re­al­i­ty, the re­verse is more of­ten true. So­ci­eties like our own can de­ny peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties their hu­man rights to have a fair shot at em­ploy­ment, ed­u­ca­tion, in­de­pen­dence, trans­porta­tion and, most im­por­tant­ly, gen­er­al so­ci­etal par­tic­i­pa­tion. It is built in­to the phys­i­cal, po­lit­i­cal and cul­tur­al ar­chi­tec­ture of so­ci­ety.

The im­ped­i­ments peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties face are of­ten worst in the spaces that are least vis­i­ble to the wider so­ci­ety. In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, stud­ies show an over-rep­re­sen­ta­tion of peo­ple with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties in pris­ons in Aus­tralia, the Unit­ed States, and Cana­da. In the UK, re­search shows that be­tween 20 per cent and 30 per cent of of­fend­ers have learn­ing dif­fi­cul­ties or learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties that in­ter­fere with their abil­i­ty to cope with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

In our own crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, lit­tle re­search has been done on how the hu­man rights of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties are vi­o­lat­ed. The lack of such re­search im­pacts so­ci­ety neg­a­tive­ly since safe­guards can­not be iden­ti­fied or en­hanced, in­creas­ing sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to po­ten­tial dis­crim­i­na­tion. One small lo­cal study notes that all three com­po­nents of the jus­tice sys­tem–the po­lice, courts and prison sys­tems–have been found to dis­crim­i­nate against peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.

Forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion iden­ti­fied in­clud­ed the ab­sence of leg­is­la­tion, the ex­is­tence of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and out-dat­ed stat­ues, a lack of sen­si­ti­sa­tion train­ing, the in­vis­i­bil­i­ty of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, an un­aware­ness of rights, in­ac­ces­si­ble in­for­ma­tion, a lack of ed­u­ca­tion on dis­abil­i­ty-re­lat­ed is­sues, dis­joint­ed NGO frame­work, so­ci­etal mis­per­cep­tion, su­per­fi­cial in­clu­sion and an ab­sence of lo­cal re­search.

These types of dis­crim­i­na­tion don't just hap­pen in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem; they are ex­am­ples of what is hap­pen­ing across the var­i­ous spaces of our so­ci­ety.They al­so tell us that there is much progress to be made in our think­ing and our ar­chi­tec­ture if we are to suc­ceed in so­cial­ly in­te­grat­ing all the mem­bers of our pop­u­la­tion.

�2Dr Dy­lan Ker­ri­g­an is an an­thro­pol­o­gist at UWI, St Au­gus­tine