Returning the Gaze: Ethical-Methodological Approaches in a Study

with Persons with Intellectual Disabilities

Ann Fudge Schormans and Adrienne Chambonfschorm@mcmaster.ca

a.chambon@utoronto.ca

February 15th, 2011

What does it mean to reconsider ethics when engaged in research with vulnerable populations, such as people with intellectual disabilities?

How is the question of vulnerability informed by philosophical considerations about the nature of human subjects and our responsibility to vulnerability and human relationships?

The practices and objects of representation engage the fundamental question of the humanity and/or dehumanization of lives.

Each of us is constituted politically in part by virtue of the social vulnerability of our bodies—as a site of desire and physical vulnerability, as a site of a publicity at once assertive and exposed. Loss and vulnerability seem to follow from our being socially constituted bodies, attached to others, at risk of losing those attachments, exposed to others, at risk of violence by virtue of that exposure. (Judith Butler, 2004:20)

When we consider the ordinary ways that we think about humanization and dehumanization, we find the assumption that those who gain representation, especially self-representation, have a better chance of being humanized, and those who have no chance to represent themselves run a great risk of being treated as less than human, regarded as less than human, or indeed, not regarded at all.

(Judith Butler, 2004:141)

What are the consequences and implications of conducting research in an ethical manner?

Reconsidering:

- access- interviewing- consent and informed consent- wounding

The “What’s Wrong with this Picture?” Project

Interrogative Encounters with Public Photographic Images of People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Troubling Photographic Re-presentations

Trembling the (non)Disabled Gaze: Invite, Disrupt, and Engage with the Viewer’s Gaze

Engagement:

Presumption of Competence

The encounter with the Other is my responsibility for him. (Levinas, 1998)

A Particular Form of Attentiveness

Rethinking the Term / Terms of the Interview

Cycles of Conversations Among Group Members and Between Researcher and Group Members

Consent:

About Process and the Continual Re-adjustment of the Encounter and the Work

What do we do with the layers of reflexivity and potential wounding that occur as part and parcel of addressing and redressing forms of othering?

When ‘wounding’ moves beyond being only an individual concern.

Can – and should – wounding be avoided?

Don’t Call Us Retarded!

Don’t Use Our Picture Without Permission!

Contact Information

Ann Fudge Schormans, Ph.D., R.S.W.McMaster University

fschorm@mcmaster.ca

Adrienne Chambon, Ph.D.University of Toronto

a.chambon@utoronto.ca