Intersectionality in Disability Inclusive Development Research (Part 1)

Join us for PART ONE of this episode on intersectionality in Disability Inclusive research. In this three-part episode, we talk about the origins of the term intersectionality, what it can look like to take or integrate an intersectional lens in Disability Inclusive Development and ways in which researchers can apply intersectionality in their work.

Come listen in as researchers and disability rights advocates  Tammy Yates Rajaduri, Bonnie Brayton and  Deborah Steinstra, talk about their extensive experiences and knowledge on the topic and be sure to listen to Parts 1, 2 and 3.  

For the full transcript and other resources, please check out the podcast website:  https://inclusiveresearchwithpirl.buzzsprout.com/  

Where to find us 

Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6j7iKcXmpY&ab_channel=PIRLProject 

Website: https://oticlab.utoronto.ca/research-projects/pirl/about-the-pirl-project/  

Email: PIRL@utoronto.ca

Transcript

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Mary Daka: Hello and welcome to yet another exciting Inclusive Research with PIRL podcast, I’m your host Mary Daka. In this episode, we are joined by 3 amazing guests to discuss a topic of Intersectionality and Inclusion in DID Research. We will explore the various intersections that come into play for people living with disabilities as well as what inclusion should look like. Feel free to check out our show notes for transcripts and resources and with that being said let’s get into it.

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Mary Daka: Hello everyone and welcome to this 3-part Podcast episode on intersectionality and inclusion in DID research. Before we get into the introductions, I'd like to acknowledge that Dr. Xuan Thuy Nguyen[b1]  would not be able to make it for this Podcast discussion due to unforeseen circumstances, but she does send her best wishes. To get started I would like to give each of you here today an opportunity to introduce yourselves.

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Deborah Stienstra: Bonnie, do you want to start? Or do you want me to?(laughs)

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Bonnie Brayton: Go ahead, Deborah. 

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Deborah Stienstra : Okay, so I'm Deborah Stienstra. I'm a professor at the University of Guelph. I am also the Director of the Live Work Well Research Centre. And part of how we think about our direction is an intersectional lens. So it's, it’s really part of how I think about research work. And I'm also the project director of a seven-year funded partnership called,excuse me, Engendering Disability Inclusive Development. “Genre, Handicap et Dévelopement Inclusif” EDID-GHEDI is what we call it. EDID-GHEDI. Tammy?

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Tammy Yates Rajaduri: Sure, thanks. Good day, my name is Tammy Yates Rajaduri, I have to keep remembering to add that since it's a new addition in my life (laughs), Tammy Yates Rajaduri, I am the executive director of an organization called Realize. And Realize who's the secretary out of the National Episodic Disabilities Forum here in Canada.

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Tammy Yates Rajaduri: But we worked as we talked about Intersection, we looked at the intersection of HIV, Aging, Disability and Rehabilitation. And from a personal perspective, I am a Cis Black Immigrant Woman here in Canada, who in 2015, became the first black female head of a national disability and HIV organization in both movements in Canada. So that's a little bit about me.

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Bonnie Brayton: Very modest, little bit, Tammy, and thank you, it's Bonnie Brayton. I'm the Chief Executive Officer of DAWN Canada, the Disabled Women's Network of Canada. We're a National Feminist Disability Organization in Canada serving women and girls with disabilities for more than 35 years. I'm coming to you today from Ottawa, but our head office is in Montreal on the territory of the Kanien'kéha. I am a White Female, Cis gendered, identifies as ‘She/Her’, and I’ve lived with a disability called Post-Polio Syndrome. Good morning.

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Deborah Stienstra: And maybe it's Deborah, again, maybe I can, I didn't give any description of me, I just gave description of the work. So I also am a White Cisgendered Heterosexual woman with dog in my lap at this point in time, hopefully he won't stay too long. I identify as a Woman With Disabilities, I live with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. And so if my words start to slur a little bit, you'll know I'm getting tired.

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Mary Daka: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's good to hear your works and your identities as well. I'm sure we'll get to learn more about what you're doing currently, as we progress in this podcast discussion today. So, um, we will jump right into the discussion. I know that the theory Intersectionality was first coined by the American civil rights advocate, Kimberly Crenshaw, to form dialogue about the relationship between feminism and women of color. Could you please tell us more about the history of the term intersectionality? And what exactly is intersectionality? Any of you could go first.

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Tammy Yates Rajuduri: Thanks so well. So of course, there's the academic definition of Intersectionality which Mary you alluded to, and, you know, not, not to repeat what you've just shared, but way back in 1989 if I'm not mistaken, When Kimberly Crenshaw first coined the term,it, it, as you shared was really a reflection from an academic or legal socio political, historical and sociological perspective of those cross and intersections of various reference points of identity. 

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Tammy Yates Rajuduri: And it, it really spoke to the systems of oppression on an individual, communities, systems and institutional, of course, academic perspective, overlaying Race, Class, Gender, and of course, at the time, which is often the case, ability very often was left out of the equation. So fast forward, I think, again, for me, I always look at what does this mean on a personal level? Or a personal level for me? Intersectionality refers to the Yes/And of my life. I am a Cis-Woman. Yes/And a black woman. Yes/And an immigrant to Canada. Yes/ And, you know, so when we look at these, I would say, ‘Yes/And’ layers of our lives, There are many who would prefer that we only look at one of those identities, whether in programming, policy, research, community action, but we are as whole individuals, we are more than just one box to take. We are the “Yes” and the “And”.

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Deborah Stienstra: Tammy, that's such a lovely. It's Deborah. It's such a lovely description of Intersectionality. In terms of, of the different ways in which our identities intersect. What I'd like to add to it is, of course, as an academic, I think also in terms of the power. The sets of power relationships, that may not be individually evident in our identities, but may shape our experiences. So those might be things like the experiences of capitalism, or global location, where we live in the world.

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Deborah Stienstra: The, the notions of in terms of capitalism, who is able to create (laughs).  I'm seeing the Rana factories, that's the word that employ people at low cost, see lives as disposable, right? and who are those people whose lives are seen as disposable? So trying to get also for me, intersectionality is trying to understand those broader systems of power and how they become the inequities that we're talking about get become embedded in our educational systems, how they get embedded in our immigration system, how they get embedded in our healthcare systems, how they get embedded in how COVID and COVID vaccines have been imagined rolled out and who receives what. 

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Deborah Stienstra: So for me part of what an intersectional analysis and practice so I see Intersectionality as both a set of tools to help us analyse, but also a way of doing things. So it is a practice. And what Intersectionality helps me understand is both our identities and how they intersect, and those broader sets of power, inequities and how they get embedded in the world around us.

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Bonnie Brayton: Yeah, and the only thing that I want to add is just some context for Women With Disabilities in this conversation because as Tammy has pointed out, right, in terms of the original feminist movement and the naming of Intersectionality, Women With Disabilities were not really considered part of that. And to this day, as many people use the term, they leave Ableism out of those “ isms” when they talk about the “isms”. But I think it's important to point out, for example, we have activists like Mia Mingus, who have really pushed out that concept for us from an Intersectional Feminist Disability Perspective and many others that I'm sure I could name.

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Bonnie Brayton:  But I think also I’ll named Maria Verrilli, as a Canadian feminist who in her early work, while she wasn't using the term intersectionality, was talking about systemic oppression. And she was talking about the systemic oppression of Women and the people With Disabilities. And she was talking about intersections around the environment all that time ago, right? In terms of understanding that all of these different things were going to impact specific people, specific situations. And as you know, Deborah has expanded, right? To think of intersectionality in this very flat way isn't helpful, because it's really an important way that we begin to get at how you change and impact the most marginalized people who generally don't fit nicely into some silo.

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Bonnie Brayton: which is the whole reason intersectionality came into existence was because of how siloed everything was and how gender was seen as this very narrow definition of what white able bodied women were experiencing, when, of course, where the women who are experiencing the highest rates of discrimination and gender-based violence and poverty, we're not white, able-bodied women. Thanks.

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Deborah Steinstra: It's Deborah, again, can I just add, we haven't brought in notions of Colonialism and Indigenous Women. I'm working right now on a project with the Native Women's Association around Indigenous women, girls and gender diverse people with disabilities. Now, if that isn't an intersectional project, I don't know what is, right, it really brings in this notion of identity, of structures, of inequalities and of diversity.

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Mary Daka: Thank you so much. I like the point that Tammy made of emphasizing Yes/And, Yes/And, that's a very good point, for intersection, for using such intersectionality and  trying to understand it in a simpler term. And also, Deborah, you mentioned the power struggles and this power structure and how they shaped intersectionality. That was also an amazing perspective. And Bonnie also highlighted how disability is now joins into the conversation of intersectionality and how it was left out at the beginning, and that goes to the next question that we are considering today. What does intersectionality mean to the disability movement?

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Bonnie Brayton: I'm going to jump in first on this one. And say in a Canadian context, I think it's helpful for your listeners to understand that sort of a key pivotal moment for DAWN Canada in these conversations was when Stats Canada confirmed something we knew, which was that at least, at least 24% of all women in this country live with a disability. That's fully one quarter of all women and when one considers poverty, gender based violence, and many of these things we can understand also that Women With Disabilities are not being well served in that context. 

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Bonnie Brayton: And so in terms of the importance, I would say, certainly, like I said, there's a bit of attention I would say a bit of attention might even be an understatement to say that in spaces where for example DAWN Canada is working, we could be in a conversation that would talk about the rates of discrimination against Women With Disabilities. But if we added race, including indigenous or black women, of course, their rates of disability are known to be above 30%. And those intersecting identities, again, become extremely important in policy. 

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Bonnie Brayton: So again, right in, in terms of one of the things that I think, is sort of a point of attention in the movement right now, is the fact that there's a lot of facts, something DAWN always think act on the facts, right? That point to the fact that we can't continue to see women divided again into these silos of being Black Women, Indigenous Women, White Women, Disabled Women, LGBTQ Women, because of course, that's not how we exist. And in fact, like I said, in terms of oppression, one of the things that I think is an important indicator for all the other feminists to think about is that there are factors that might increase the rates of disability among black and indigenous and other marginalized folks. 

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Bonnie Brayton: And that we need to understand that it's, it's when we actually all see ourselves as a collective group of people with intersectional discrimination that we actually get to a place where we can start to make meaningful policy change. Thanks.

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Tammy Yates Rajaduri: Thanks so much, Bonnie. And I want to add to that; This is Tammy. From my perspective, having migrated to Canada 10 years ago, this August, one of the things that struck me the most first and foremost, when I was named as the executive director of REALIZE, and we found out, I mean, we didn't know that, you know, it was the first time that a black woman in the disability movement would be the head of an organization, we did not know.

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Tammy Yates Rajaduri: It was the first time in the HIV movement in Canada, that a black woman would be the head of an organization. But that did not mean that the activists in the movement, who for generations before, had been raising the alarms about these systems of oppression, even within the disability justice movement in Canada. So for example, names that come to mind, of course, Bonnie, as a living embodiment of, of, you know, that history of activism, but Rabea Kadir and McNeil Scicon. And, you know, the list can go on and on. You know, very recently, an organization called Ashy Foundation for Black Canadians With Disability has been formed. 

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Tammy Yates Rajaduri: And so that speaks volumes, that for, you know, the generations of persons with disabilities, here in Canada, that the activism has been happening, and they have been calling in and calling out the issue of intersectionality. From all perspectives, may it be indigeneity, may it be minority faith groups, may it be to LGBTQ activists. But I have to say that within the last five years. And part I think of that almost floodgate opening within the last three years, has been the death, the murder of George Floyd, the activism, the very strategic activism of our indigenous siblings, and so many other movements that have culminated within what I often termed, as this summer of reckoning that impacted people with disabilities.

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Tammy Yates Rajaduri:  From a COVID perspective, and the again intersection of COVID-19, anti black oppression, anti indigenous oppression, and the marginalization of people with disabilities within the COVID response, there has been a tidal wave of recognition of the term intersectionality. But again, that does not mean that within the movement, as Bonnie shared, that people have not been calling from the mountaintops to talk about these issues. The difference is that there's a wider or more societal opening of hearts and minds to do something about it. 

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Tammy Yates Rajaduri: Now, five years from now, how much would have been done? You know, Deborah talks about the theory. And there's the practice. When we come back to this podcast five years from now, let's see how much would have been done.

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Deborah Stienstra: That's, I, I just love this conversation. I learned so much from both Tammy and Bonnie. And I wanted to shift a little bit to the international experiences, in part because I think we're seeing also a similar shift of what Tammy is talking about and awareness, and an opening to a more intersectional analysis. So for decades, we've heard that there's a link between poverty and disability, and it was this. People with disabilities are poor, and you'll become poor when you're disabled and you become disabled when you're poor. But there was; that's a really blunt description, right? Like it's kind of crass.

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Deborah Stienstra: This whole group, there was no subtlety in who are these People With Disabilities? Which People With Disabilities in what circumstances? Right, like it was, every disabled person is poor, and or at least that's the message that was set for decades. And we're beginning now I think, with the use of intersectional tools, or at least more intersectional tools to get things that help us recognize the stark gap. So let me give you one for instance, a United Nations report before the pandemic noted the stark gap between what Women With Disabilities and Men Without Disability, so get that that's a gendered and a disability analysis. And they say, Women With Disabilities are three times more likely to have unmet needs for health care. And this is globally, three times more likely to be illiterate, two times less likely to be employed, and two times less likely to use the internet.  

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Deborah Stienstra:  That's an important growth in our understanding of the privileges of, because that's what intersectional analysis does. It doesn't just teach us who's oppressed, or who lives in situations of, of being put down. But it also teaches us who has privilege, and we need to name those privileges, but also recognize, for example, I hold both right. As a white woman in the global north, I have tremendous privilege. I'm incredibly well educated, well paid. I'm Cisgendered. I'm a Settler Immigrant, right? All of those things give me privileges, but I'm also a Woman With Disabilities. 
 

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Deborah Stienstra: And that means that my health is a bit precarious at times, it means at times my job is precarious. It means, right. So what I think  intersectional thinking does, is to show us that complexity, and I'm really pleased to begin to see some of that complexity showing up both in Canada and more globally.

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Bonnie Brayton: Let me just add a little tiny something there, Mary, because, again, in terms of what Deborah reminds me of course, is that from my first days at DAWN Canada back as early as 2009, right, whenever I went to any international meetings, there were some here in Canada, there were some at the UN. And I mean, there's a long story here that doesn't fit into this question quite. But Women With Disabilities from around the world have been trying to organize and trying to create a voice for themselves for decades.  

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Bonnie Brayton: And Women With Disabilities at those intersections, again, in spaces, like the UN and other places, for the first time have found ourselves together, right? In a place where we can say, you know, we represent something. But I'll just say this, because it was such an important moment for me. When the World Health Organization's report, the disability report they released in it was 2009, or 2010, and the woman's name was Sergeant I can't remember her first name. But she confirmed something that was really the thing that I used as my big stick, which was that there were more than a half a billion Women With Disabilities around the world. 

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Bonnie Brayton: More than a billion. When you start to think numbers like that. And you're like, why are we waiting? What is going on here? And like I said, that urgency came from the World Health Organization report. And it's again, an example of how research and data can be a really strong driver. Right, in terms of what you can make possible even in terms of a conversation that we were trying to have for so many years, which as you know, Deborah and Tammy point out has become so much more engaged with us as part of that conversation only very recently. Thanks

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Mary Daka: So much. It's very interesting to learn everything that's going on in that Disability and Intersectionality lens, when you mentioned the, the intersection between disability increasing with risks, and it's quite alarming to see how like, that more women of color have disa, more percentage of disability and how that is showcased. And also, how various groups are actually coming up to join into the disability and intersectional light. Would you mind mentioning some of those groups that have come up. I know one of them is EDID. And do you have any other like groups or movements that are actually coming into the disability and putting disability and intersection in, in perspective?

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Bonnie Brayton: I can answer that and I know Deborah can add to that too, because of course with the EDID study, we're getting a lot more of the right kind of information. I mean, informally, to be clear, Mary, there are hundreds of Women With Disability groups. And I would say what I found really interesting in terms of something that I saw, which was I think something that really you know, speaks to something else we need to talk about at some point which is Once the CRPD was written a Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities in developing countries, you saw a marked increase in the number of organized governed groups of Women With Disabilities.

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Bonnie Brayton: But I'll make the point, in Canada, that doesn't happen. I think it's a really interesting thing to talk about, perhaps not in this podcast, but in another one in terms of why is that, and I've never had a chance to really unpack that with Deborah, because I think it's important to think that through also, but I was gonna say Women Enabled, of course, is one of the organizations that's been you know, very. In terms of a profile, it's led by an American woman who positioned Women Enabled at the international level with the International Disability Alliance and others. 

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Bonnie Brayton: What I will say and I think the point I want to make is that there is still no international grassroots, established governed Organization for Women With Disabilities, there is a group that Deborah and I have been working with, including with my friend, Abby Akram from Pakistan, which, which as I said, has been a movement in the making for a number of years now and continues to work at the international level, it just really in terms of trying to create a network called the Global Women with Disabilities Forum. 

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Bonnie Brayton: And I was gonna say, in addition to that, like I said, there's a number of other really interesting groups in many different countries, including the groups that we're working with in the Engendering Disability and Development project. I'll let Deborah take it from here, because like I said, I know she's got lots to share on this topic, also. Thank you.

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Deborah Stienstra: Thanks, Bonnie. I think that maybe I can start with EDID. And I think that what, as Bonnie says, we're trying to do is to use an intersectional analysis in our research in different countries, and that as well as transnationally. And that brings us into contact with a lot of other groups, who are also aspiring to do like we aspire, we don't do,  we aspire to do an intersectional analysis and practice. And so I'm thinking, for example of our colleagues in South Africa, who are working with the South Africa Disability Alliance. 
 

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Deborah Stienstra: They're a coalition of disability groups, the research that they're doing through EDID. And a number of other projects is to work with diverse women and girls with disabilities to understand what their priorities are, what /how they want to move forward, what are some of the key areas of concern so that research and action can be taken? I see a very similar thing going on with our colleagues in Vietnam. While they work, for example, with the Hanoi Association of, of People With Disabilities that we generally call DP Hanoi.
 

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Deborah Stienstra: It's a Disabled Persons Organization, but it's with leadership of women with disabilities, and it's seeking to reach women who live in more rural areas, as well as women of ethnic minorities within Vietnam. So in both of those cases, we're, we're working on expanding our intersectional analysis, and Bonnie's put in the, the chat, our, our partners and friends at the National Union of Women with Disabilities of Uganda NUWADU, who again, in the context of, of the complexities of Uganda, Northern Uganda and the legacies of conflict in that country, working to understand the diverse experiences of Women With Disabilities. 

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Deborah Stienstra: I also just want to note that part of the transnational research that we're doing is to map out where discussions of Women With Disabilities come into, for example, discussions around the Convention on the Rights of People With Disabilities or the Convention on the Rights of Women. And in both cases, there are more discussions going on that are intersectional in nature than organizations that are intersectional like so there, there's an attempt to widen the discussion of both disability and women to include People With Disabilities and women with diverse Women With Disabilities. And one of the ones that sticks in my mind is the Africa Organization at the Africa Forum of Women With Disabilities, which is a new, as far as I understand a new organization. And it's intended to reflect that whole diversity of Women With Disabilities.
 
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Bonnie Brayton: So I just want to jump in, the African Disability Forum, I think, is one of the things that I would love to talk a little bit about, because the African Disability Forum is also an example of something we aspire to in Canada, because it's a Pan African Bilingual Organization of Civil Society. All disability organizations from across Africa working in the two colonizers languages, mind you, French and English. But that said, right, it is an accomplishment to see that and out of that has come the African Disability/ Disabled Women's Forum as well. 

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Bonnie Brayton: I think, just also wanted to note Mary that I had dropped a couple of other organizations’ names in the chat box. And that one of the things that I wanted to say, because I would be remiss not to, would be to mention Women With Disabilities Australia. Because DAWN Canada and Women With Disabilities Australia represent the two oldest government[b2]  organizations of Women With Disabilities in the world, both of us are about 35-36 years old now.

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Bonnie Brayton: And like I said, both with some other common, I think pieces in terms of the working opportunities, but both in countries where like I said, there's been some opportunities, but also some real challenges around some of the intersectional issues we're still talking about in a Canadian context, particularly because there are some very large, robust population of Iindigenous people in Australia, New Zealand, who have been, of course, oppressed hugely.  This is another place where I think especially in a Canadian and international context, there's some real opportunities because the opportunity for moving forward with truth and reconciliation has been named in Canada, for example.
 

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Bonnie Brayton: But the understanding of the connection between disability and indigeneity really hasn't been made at a policy level or any kind of level in a Canadian context. I'll leave it there, because it's a larger discussion, but I thought it was interesting.

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Mary Daka: Thank you so much for bringing to light some of the groups that are pioneering this movement with disability and bringing to light the intersections of various factors that affect people living with disabilities especially women living with disabilities. This is the end of part 1 of this discussion thank you so much and thank you to the listeners please stay tuned for part 2

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