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Disability Culture and Politics
Dispatches from Disabled Country

Dispatches from Disabled Country

by Catherine Frazee

Edited by Christine Kelly and Michael Orsini

Published by: University of British Columbia Press

Series: Disability Culture and Politics

Imprint: UBC Press

288 Pages, 152.00 × 229.00 mm, 6 b&w photographs

Paperback
9780774868686
Published: May 2023

£26.99

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Contents
Authors

"Disability is not our worst-case scenario – our worst-case scenario would be its annihilation." This is the starting point for this powerful collection of writing by and about Catherine Frazee, disability activist, Officer of the Order of Canada, and poetic scholar of justice.

For Frazee, disability is not something to be dreaded or overcome but a force to be reckoned with – a prism of insight and experience that refracts new light upon our fundamental ideals of justice, beauty, and community.

Catherine Frazee has been a central figure in the disability rights landscape in Canada for decades. Her reasoned and passionate insights are topical and often ahead of their time. Always bold, always progressive, and frequently provocative, Frazee's work presents an unwavering, fierce commitment to engage in public debate from a position that centres the lives of disabled people.

Taken together, these writings chronicle the rising consciousness of a social movement of disabled people staking their claim in public policy and popular culture, a claim that is overdue for honest recognition.

Foreword / Kathryn Church and Melanie Panitch

Preface: About Disabled Country / Catherine Frazee

Introduction / Christine Kelly and Michael Orsini

Refusing Extinction

Introduction / Harvey Chochinov

Death in Disabled Country: Declaring Ourselves in the MAiD Debate

Under the Microscope: Dissecting Law and Medicine in the Disability Rights Laboratory

Disability and Law: Rethinking Paradigms

Vigils for Tracy Latimer

Vulnerability and Inducement: Locating the Cart and the Horse

Disability Studies: The Genetic Counsellor's Unexpected Guest

Lamb Affidavit

Disrupting Culture

Introduction / Eliza Chandler

Art with Attitude

Because We Are: Anthem for Disabled Country

Kicking the Applecart, Upsetting Culture

Absent Presence: Disability in (and out of) the Museum

Stelco's Cabin, a Response

Contributing to Culture

Out from Under: Two Beginnings

Unmaking Vulnerability

Introduction / Laverne Jacobs

Violence, Disability, and Remembering

Courageous States

Disability in a Dangerous Time

Venom without Malice: On First Meeting a Rattlesnake

Separate but Equal, Isn't

Activism Works

Why Monsters Matter: Portrait of the Activist as a Young Monster

Conclusion: An Interview with Catherine Frazee / Michael Orsini and Christine Kelly

Notes; References; Index

Catherine Frazee is a professor emerita at Toronto Metropolitan University, where, prior to her retirement in 2010, she served as a professor of distinction and codirector of the Ryerson RBC Foundation Institute for Disability Studies Research and Education. She also acted as the chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission from 1989 to 1992. She has provided expert testimony before Federal and Superior Courts on human rights and disability disadvantage and has contributed actively in Supreme Court of Canada interventions of strategic concern to disabled Canadians, most recently regarding the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Frazee has written extensively on human rights, precarious citizenship, and the activist resistance of disabled people.

Dr. Frazee has received honorary degrees from Carleton University, Dalhousie University, the University of New Brunswick, and McMaster University. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2014 for "her advancement of the rights of persons with disabilities, and as an advocate for social justice."

Christine Kelly is an associate professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. Michael Orsini is a full professor in the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies and School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa.

Contributors: Eliza Chandler, Harvey Chochinov, Kathryn Church, Laverne Jacobs, Christine Kelly, Michael Orsini, and Melanie Panitch