Episode 38 Where to do Accessibility Work
0-0:12 Orthotonics Accessible as Gravity plays and fades out
0:13 Hello and welcome to Accessagogy a podcast about accessibility and pedagogy. I’m your host Ann Gagné and this podcast is recorded on land covered by the Upper Canada Treaties and within land protected by the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Agreement, which is the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples.
0:34 Welcome to episode thirty-eight. In this episode we’ll focus on tangible ways and wheres that you can do the accessibility work. There’s been a lot of conversations lately on LinkedIn about how it’s not a place to be political quote unquote, and whether it’s the place to do accessibility work. So today I want to give us some brief space to reflect on how we can do that accessibility work that we care about so much, in a time where every space that used to do that work seems to be under attack or crumbling.
1:07 This will not of course be an exhaustive kind of reflection, but at least a space in this mini-sode, if you will, to question where and how we communicate our care for the work that we value and work that supports others.
1:23 So space number one, and the obvious space, which is social media. Now many have strong opinions about social media platforms and whether they’re useful to do the accessibility work and if you know social media posts have value or is it just like empty advocacy. But basically what I’m suggesting here is to engage in spaces that you’re already in. So this means sharing resources, this means boosting disabled folk and their posts and their ideas, and this also means ethical citational practices when it comes to ideas that have their origins with disabled folk or multimarginalized people.
2:00 My place of choice right now is LinkedIn because it serves a couple of areas in my life that I’m invested in. However, I do know that a lot of people that are interested in higher education are on Bluesky, where I am not and I will not be, and on other spaces as well. Social media can allow you to learn from others, can allow you to find out what needs attention quickly, find people in your area that can support, or connect with others outside of your space that have lived experience. It’s by sharing ideas that things can start to feel a little lighter and maybe folk can feel less alone in this world.
2:41 Second space, so this space is a space that I’ve been advocating for a lot this academic year and is even more important now, which are microcommunities, so that’s communities in your geographic area or even further afield or spaces where you’re working or volunteering right now. And this can look very different depending on the needs of the folk in the microcommunity. So this could be Zoom discussion spaces. This could be Discord servers. This could be getting together and going for a walk. This could be getting together and having masked knitting or reading time together.
3:18 It is through these microcommunities that webs of advocacy can build. Maybe you have someone in the group that doesn’t know a lot about accessibility but they know a lot about cooking. There could be an exchange where the cooking skills are used to support gluten-free baked goods and then you get to support those who have difficulty getting these kind of treats because of the sheer cost of ingredients right now.
3:40 In these microcommunities there’s the most potential for accessibility awareness and advocacy reach. Because someone will know someone else, and someone will have something that maybe someone else needs. The barter systems are alive and well and a great way to support access within communities, like say for example, you have the bodymind space to shovel a friend’s driveway that’s full of ice and snow, not that I know anything about what that’s about right now. But that person in exchange can look over your resume for the new community-based role that you’re applying for and that will in turn support making the community more inclusive.
4:19 We are absolutely not in a space where this is time for big, in fact many routes to big, like grants or positions are being cut. So now is the time for smaller impactful ideas and actions.
4:35 And finally, third space, and the last for today, remembering that I’m just trying to give you some ideas to take away and reflect on. This third space is create. Create a space or be creative in a space. And this creation bit can look and feel like so many things and it’s very individual and it can do all kinds of accessibility work. So I’m putting this podcast together after having a very busy week that fluctuated from supporting accessibility in the role that I do, but also needing accessibility supports myself because of health. And now as I record this we are leading into a long weekend and the one thing that I’m looking forward to is time to rest, to recuperate, and to create.
5:21 This podcast is one area where I can be a bit creative, my blog is another. I’ve also started making mini one-page zines whenever I have ideas or emotions that I don’t know where to put and it’s been very supportive. I also write poetry. And often my poetry is very like socio-culturally or socio-politically informed, but it also has a real micro community lived experience in it. So like a fleeting moment, a moment that needs documentation, this is what my poetry has become. And we’re certainly in a time where we need documentation and we need it more than ever. So what that documentation will look like will again vary. For some it’ll be a memoir of living in these times, for others it’ll be paintings, or sculptures, maybe even a song that you make up as you are in the kitchen thinking about things. And that’s the beauty of creation; it’s so personal, and yet has the possibility of impacting so many others.
6:17 So that’s it, that’s episode 38 of Accessagogy, with a discussion of where we can do the accessibility work that we need to do when platforms seem to be disappearing and maybe to give you some ideas about how you keep doing what we do, and how we all keep doing what we do in ways that are meaningful and impactful and needed.
6:35 Remember that I want this to be a space where you can ask questions and share concepts that you’d like me to discuss. So if there’s anything that I mentioned here that you would like me to elaborate on please ask.
6:45 As always if you have any ideas or aspects of your pedagogy that you’d like me to address in this podcast, please feel free to send me an email at Accessagogy so that’s acc e ss a gogy at gmail dot com. I’ll try to include as many of these suggestions as possible in the podcast because ultimately, this podcast is for you. So that’s it, that’s episode 38 of Accessagogy, thanks so much for following along and asking how can I make my space more accessible today? Have a great week!