Episode 40 Interdependence
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.
0:33 Welcome to episode forty, which is a bit difficult to believe but here we are. In this episode, which I’m recording early in the morning so you might hear some birds, I’d like to discuss one of the principles of Disability Justice which is Interdependence and how interdependence can show itself in the way that we think of and even design for educational and accessibility needs.
0:58 This episode is dedicated to my friend Leaf, whom we lost this week. And I’m going to be honest and say that I’m still very deep in processing my grief around this loss and their loss really reinforced actually the need for these topic this week which I had already decided at the beginning of the week that this was what I wanted to focus on before this happened.
1:21 Interdependence is one of the disability justice principles outlined and explained by the Sins Invalid, a group of queer BIPOC disabled folk and I’ll link to their work in the episode notes. Interdependence is framed as “we meet each others’ needs as we build toward liberation, knowing that state solutions inevitably extend into further control over lives.” And Leaf was exactly one of those people who understood deeply how it’s only through mutual aid, through understanding what others need by listening and caring, that liberation is possible. They understood and reinforced how all the systems, including ecosystems are connected, and that it’s not going to be a state solution or an institutional solution that will lead to that liberation, but a grassroots meaningful action that will support the freedom and awareness building that’s needed.
2:18 This interconnectedness and deep awareness of interdependence is how Leaf framed their work, their thought, their being in the world. And they’re going to be deeply missed by all of us who knew them, but we also know that their energy and presence will always be deeply with us.
2:40 As an educator, Leaf and I would also often talk about interdependence in our institutional spaces. How do we meet learner’s needs, how do we meet the needs of the teaching team, and how do we recognize how often those needs are often the same needs especially when institutions would like to emphasize that they’re different, because of the power dynamics that are embedded in the spaces that we’re in. So, in this episode I’d like to highlight three ways that we can stop and explore interdependence in a disability justice framework especially in the educational spaces that we may find ourselves in.
3:16 So point one and I’m going to use a phrase that I use often, and it’s a phrase that I used often that Leaf really liked, which is that the systems be systemy. Those of us in education often find ourselves doing this educational work within institutions that are very much part of the “state solutions” as noted in the principle of Interdependence. And it’s often really difficult to emphasize the need for interdependence or interdependence awareness when one is in a state solutions or institution, because part of the reasons why these solutions exist is to control. So, my first suggestion here is to think about how one can do this interdependence awareness work that breaks out of these solutions even if we tend to find ourselves in them.
4:00 So for example, is there a way to build in more community educational opportunities that provide learning more organically or more naturally through organized time and space. So think, more nature walks, or just being or learning in nature, think more opportunities for conversations with people who are doing grassroots organizing in community, around food deserts, around lack of housing, around social supports for disabled folk, for queer folk.
4:28 It’s in those opportunities for more conversations and things of this nature being brought into curricular design that’s going to allow for the second thing that I’m suggesting here which is reflection opportunities for learners to acknowledge interdependence and see the ways that things are connected in ways that they may not have realized before. And so what I want to emphasize here is this is not just “student” work, but rather work that needs to be done by everyone who finds themselves in learning environments, even those that are considered to be part of the teaching team.
5:03 This is important because I have so many conversations with folk about the kind of trickle-down harm and even trauma that’s created by a lack of awareness of interdependence and the need to meet each other’s needs, even and especially when access friction is a real possibility. So I’m going to use an example that came up in a group meeting I was in the other day. If someone doesn’t create accessible pdfs as part of their course design, for whatever reason, maybe it’s a timing reason because they’re a sessional or an adjunct and they just found out they’re teaching a course, or maybe it’s a technological reason, because no one ever taught them how to design and create accessible documents and resources, that lack of accessible documents has a real impact on other people in that learning space, even if the intent towards harm is not there.
5:48 So building in space to reflect, many times over the course of what’s understood as a traditional semester, to see the impact of the choices that are made by everyone in that space, can help build a more caring environment in which to learn from and to learn from each other. Environments that tear down power dynamics and move towards a collective liberation for bodyminds that are traditionally forgotten or oppressed by the systems as they are designed.
6:16 Which takes me to point three. And so we need to break out of those systems and design for more collective meeting, we also need to give each person time to realize how their choices in those learning spaces have impact on others that may cause harm, but we also third, need to show up. And so this aspect is reinforced by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in The Future is Disabled, which I will link to in the show notes. But showing up is so important right now. And I’m not saying, you know how we show up for others only, but how we show up for ourselves. How do we live the values that we believe in, how do we follow the paths that matter to us daily?
7:03 Showing up for ourselves and our beliefs is how we foster interdependence, because that energy that we put out there, for ourselves, also impacts what we can do and what we can and how we can be there for others. As disabled folk, the ability to show up for others is often a factor of how we can show up for ourselves first and the systems that we find ourselves in have a real difficult time with that because they function in a space where they want us to show up or need the exact same thing all the time. The systems expect cogs and robots, instead of daily bodyminds. And interdependence is about reminding them that different bodyminds exist with different daily needs. The more that we can do this work, the less power the systems will have over us.
7:50 So that’s it, that’s episode 40 of Accessagogy, with a discussion of how to incorporate more Interdependence awareness in the educational spaces that we hold and share and a nod to my friend Leaf who did this kind of awareness building in everything that they did and with every person that they met.
8:07 Remember that I want this to be a space where we can ask questions and share concepts that you’d like me to discuss. So if there’s anything that I mentioned here about interdependence as it relates to the spaces that you find yourself in and you would like me to elaborate, please ask.
8:21 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 40 of Accessagogy, thanks so much for following along and asking how can I make my space more accessible today? Have a great week!