Looking at the Unseen: A Journey to the Places and Spaces of Invisible Disability

• In Event: 46.024 - Creating Spaces to Transform Social Justice Dissertation Research Into Teaching Practice

Abstract

Individuals with disability struggle to make noise in our current stale curriculum. More specifically, those with invisible disabilities find it difficult to find the voice that is necessary to advocate for a more individualized education. People with invisible disabilities “appear” to function like “normal” students in the general population. The average observer would never know that people with invisible disabilities face any intellectual struggle because the disability cannot be seen or detected.
We must explore how border crossing and the creation of a third space are a necessary part of life for those who have invisible disabilities. In addition, we must discover how vulnerability is revealed in the crossing and creation of these spaces and how that vulnerability can be used to transcend the often hurtful and damaging practices that are inherent in special education programs.
Critical disability studies, though an underrepresented one has been a topic of inquiry in the field of education. Disability naturally lends itself to the field of geography due to the notion of accommodations and the need to change and manipulate space to meet the needs of the disability and move within the fabric of society. All space has been manipulated in one way or another. To manipulate is to change because the earth is a living organism that changes organically.
Space, and the creation of space, is intertwined with critical disabilities studies and how that relationship among them creates a space of opportunity not seen within mainstream learning. Inherent are power relationships among place, space, and disability through lived experiences. The impact and connection that freedom in third spaces and socially constructed spaces have on those with invisible learning disabilities is an interruption that needs to take create noise in our current educational system. The navigation of places and spaces of prejudice, pain and hopelessness can teach those with invisible disabilities, and those who teach them, how to create spaces and places of productivity, joy, and strength. Emotion and mental imagery within these places and spaces are sources of navigation that are part of the interruption that must take place.
The critical examination of what spaces have been created for learning-disabled individuals and how those spaces have been manipulated either by others or by the disabled, themselves must take place in order for the noise to be heard and shared by others in advocacy of those with indivisible disabilities. This noise will inform others about how people navigate as disabled individuals who cross various borders, including disability exile, social assimilation, and integration to thrive in the midst of adversities and challenges. By creating conversations around critical disability and geography, we can discover how to create the physical and mental spaces and places that those with invisible specific learning disabilities need to inhabit in order to be successful.

Author

• Kristen Denney, South Effingham High School