“Intersectionality is a metaphor for understanding the ways that multiple forms of inequality or disadvantage sometimes compound themselves and create obstacles that often are not understood among conventional ways of thinking.” (Crenshaw, 1989)

For this task, we were presented with three resources representing a wide range of intersecting identities with the common theme of disability. The identities presented by Ade for the purposes of the interview were; black, male, wheelchair user and paralympian. Christine positioned herself as a deaf artist and mother who lives in Berlin but is from America. Chay described himself as a white trans man who is probably nerodiverse, has mental health challenges and is gay. He is the director of operations at an organisation called TransActual. Each of the three represents a range of intersectional identities at play.

Ade made the excellent point that society curtails the potential of disabled people rather than their actual disability. The same could also be said of race whereby the systemic racism that exists in our society prevents people of colour from achieving their full potential. Ade talked about how black people have suffered hundreds of years of oppression and therefore it’s a slow process of reform. He pointed out that society has to really WANT to tackle inequality which needs to be backed up by action rather than simply words. In talking about how society has changed in the last 30 years, he agreed that overt racism has declined but that structural racism and discrimination still very much exists and is considerably harder to change. He gave the example of employers being unwilling to offer work to a disabled person due to the percieved challenges this would bring for them in terms of access.

Christine spoke about her life as an artist and how the experience of being deaf is represented in her work. She made the point that it is the responsiblity of the hearing community to learn sign language. She also spoke about living in Berlin and how it is affordable with free childcare options. This is compared to life elsewhere which involves large amounts of debt with the associated workload required to service the debt. Free childcare is an intervention by the government which has enabled Christine to continue her work as an artist. It got me thinking about how impactful government interventions can be for society as a whole. I have no doubt that Christine would have found her working life as a mother much more challenging if she was based in the UK.

Christine also spoke about how easy it is the become ‘trapped’ in the deaf community, not venturing into the hearing community as it’s is simply easier to be around those who she can commuicate with. Through time spent living in New York, she describes how her confidence increased massively as she had no choice but to engage with the wider world. She talks about how remaining within any one community can become like an echo chamber and how important it is to take up space and be visible as a deaf person in the wider world as without visibility, society will never change.

Chay has centered his working life around his identity as a trans man and he seemed very self-aware in terms of the intersectionality of his identity. He talked about how he can ‘pass as a cis-man’ and how, combined with his white skin and hidden disability, he is afforded a number of priviledges in society. The concept of ‘hidden’ disability is very thought provoking, particularly in terms of teaching students who may also have hiddent disabilites to contend with. Chay offered some excellent practical advice for organisations or those who are running events. He advised that access requirements should always be asked for in advance and crucially that there should be budget allocated for this. He points out that if organisations plan for the disabled then the event will be better for everyone. In terms of his neurodiversity, he also spoke about how events can be overwhelming in terms of noise and in particular when they are centred around alcohol.

Some recurring themes which come up in the three resources are the fact that society needs to change to centre the experiences of least advantaged, thus making it better for everyone. However, there needs to be a genuine desire for change rather than simply ticking boxes – it needs to involve specific interventions and crucially budget at all levels. Having said that, there are smaller interventions which can be made without lots of cost which simply require awareness and consideration – for example, including captions on anything recorded and making sure everyone is able to physically access spaces. Visibility was another central theme with each making the point that disabled people need to be more visible and ‘take up space’ in society. This can be assisted by those in power by simply asking for requirements and proactively making necessary adjustments.

In my own teaching context, I can see that there are a number of considerations in terms of intersectionality – some are already in place and some require improvement. For example, on my unit (MA Arts & Cultural Enterprise), students have the option to submit their assessment as a 2000 word report or as a ‘digital intervention’ which could take a variety of formats. This choice can work well for neurodiverse students or those who have english as a second language. I teach largely online and alongside the UK cohort, I have 25 students who are based in Hong Kong as the course is paired with Hong Kong University. Currently we don’t add subtitles to our recorded sessions but this is something that I plan to do going forward. Having asked about how to do this, I realise that it not straight-forward as it’s not built into the Collaborate teaching platform. It will inovle a work-around using powerpoint which I will need to practise with. This also means that subtitles will only be available with the recorded version rather than the live classes. In our taught sessions, we learnt about the 14% awarding gap which exists at UAL between home students based on race. This was a suprising and shocking statistic which really highlights how much work is still to be done in our society and institutions as a whole.

References:
Crenshaw, Nicole: (1989) Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics