I find myself in between the two points of view represented below. The reason I
took up my project--inquiring into the label "learning disabled" and how it is
deployed in university composition programs--is not out of a neutral and
disinterested position, a mere curiosity. It is because of my deep personal and
political concern about oppressive literacy practices and what they imply about
our social and cultural positions regarding 'competence.' So, what I do, within
the rubric of 'disability studies' or 'disability research', is directly related
to an advocacy or activist concern. While I feel it is urgent for me to
continue to ask myself and others, 'does what I do benefit, harm or do nothing
for disabled people?', I don't think anyone can answer about the consequences
for *all* disabled people. If what I do helps so-labelled "LD" or "dyslexic"
people, but other d.p. believe that there are possible negative implications to
my ideas, then where does that place me and the ethics of my project? Who
decides whether a project is on the whole beneficial or detrimental? There is
no single d.p. who can make that call, nor is there any clear consensus process;
and even if there were, I'm not sure I'd in the final analysis subscribe to it.
However in response to Dick Jacob's comments way below, I am not comfortable
with the historical role of the scholar's immunity in "an environment as free
from politics and popular opinion as possible". As Richard Light implies, it is
this ostensibly (and fictionally) "objective" position that has granted
'professionals' so much power. I don't know why, though, we should assume that
this power is always going to be abused, rather than re-mobilized by and for
d.p. and allies. In short, apart from policing research and scholarship, I
think there has to be a continuing effort to allow scholars and activists to
respond to one another--as opposed to vilifying one another or screaming at one
another or deriding one another.
Richard Jacobs wrote (in part):
> > From: Richard Light [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> [snip]
>
> > I willingly defer to the huge intellects represented on the list but
> > simply
> > ask: 'do you stop to consider whether what you do benefits, harms or does
> > absolutely nothing for disabled people?' Disabled people have been
> > fighting
> > the vested interests and arrogance of 'professionals' since they first
> > sought to end the abuse of institutionalised 'care'. Might it be the case
> > that the academic endeavours the movement spawned are now simply another
> > barrier for disabled people to cross? Deeply ironic or what.
> [DJ] Again, Richard, we part company. Academic research should not
> be measured, in my non-academic opinion, by whether it benefits, harms, or
> ignores current social movements. I'm not even sure that such movements
> even need the help of academics, at least not in their professional roles.
> What I am sure of is that scholarship needs to exist in an environment as
> free from politics and popular opinion as possible. The danger, of course,
> is that we behave like the old-time Soviets: measuring academic worthiness
> by consistency with Marxist-Leninist theory.
>
> -Dick Jacobs
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