I Spent A Day In A Wheelchair To See What It's Like To Be Disabled In A City
“Alone and small in the street, my self-awareness heightens. Large swarms of hurried people part when they see me approaching. My whole identity has changed in the eyes of the city within minutes. My wheelchair is my fortress and the enemy…Never before had I seen the streetscape in such meticulous detail. Tiny height differences such as curbs and grooves between cobbles become mountains, cruelly halting progress and making small advances, exhausting. Whilst battling physical obstructions, I myself have become one. If the pavements were widened, perhaps disabled citizens wouldn't be seen as causing an obstruction…Within a society, individuals learn social attitudes from one another. Individual thoughts merge into a collective consciousness, displaying 'herd behavior' at an unconscious level. Disability prejudices are often learned in this way. It can be said that social media sites have recently become a live stream of visualized collective consciousness. Therefore, this medium has great power to battle social barriers.”
Books:
Charlton, J. I. (1998). Nothing about us without us: Disability oppression and empowerment. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Weber, M. C. (2007). Disability harassment. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
Articles:
Villanueva-Flores, M., Valle, R., & Bornay-Barrachina, M. (2017). Perceptions of discrimination and distributive injustice among people with physical disabilities. Personnel Review, 46(3), 680-698.
Dammeyer, J., & Chapman, M. (2018). A national survey on violence and discrimination among people with disabilities. BMC Public Health, 18, 1.
Lindsay, S. (2019). Gender matters in the transition to employment for young adults with physical disabilities. Disability and Rehabilitation. 41(3), 319-332.
Mitchell, S. (2018). Open wounds: Visible physical disability and its meaning for the group and society. Group Analysis, 51(4), 487–499.
Dirth, T. P., & Branscombe, N. R. (2017). Disability Models Affect Disability Policy Support through Awareness of Structural Discrimination. Journal of Social Issues, 73(2), 413–442.
Lee, C. (2017). An interpersonal dialogue group for students with and without disabilities. Social Work With Groups, 40(3), 214–222.
Streaming Videos
Day to day life using a wheelchair
A Day in the Life of an Oxford Wheelchair User – The Oxford Accessibility Project
For more information, contact the Loyola Reference Librarians - http://libraries.luc.edu/ask/chat.
