From: The Disability-Research Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Malacrida, Claudia
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 11:48 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Contentious issue with a publication

 

Hello, all

I was invited to include a previously published paper in an anthology of readings on Oral History. The chapter engages with barriers to conducting research on an institution for ‘mental defectives’ in Alberta. The project was stymied by protectionism on several fronts – guardians who wouldn’t provide permission to survivors for interviews, archives with Freedom of Information regulations that made locating files very difficult and very expensive, and officials who would not provide access to the institution – even for a tour. The point of the paper is to ask whether ‘protectionism’ is actually working in the service of those who already wield power, and instead operates to disempower those who would speak about their own histories.

The reviews are in, and below is a snippet from the Editors. They ask me to consider revising the paper, saying that “alluding to the debate would probably strengthen your argument and chapter” but they leave it up to me what I want to do. I’m tempted to treat this as another example of protectionism and write it in as such – but I welcome feedback….Here is the review:

“…The reviewers were particularly enthusiastic about your chapter and viewed it as a crucial and unique guide that, in the words of Reviewer 1, “gets at institutional obstacles to having all voices heard, with emphasis here on the most vulnerable individuals.”

The reviewers did not request any revisions, except that Reviewer 1 wished for a more “balanced” view. Here are his/her comments:

This [chapter] is flawed by its assumption that everyone is better off somewhere else than in a place like the Michener Centre. No doubt most are and that was the argument for emptying such places in the 1960s when deinstitutionalization of both the clearly mentally challenged and the questionably mentally ill occurred. We now know that that this has had mixed results and that many of the homeless are people who, in another era, might have lived a little longer and perhaps even had better lives overall if they or their families could have access to places like the Michener Centre. Similarly, the constant stories of disabled people being abused by their own families or foster families within the privacy of homes has raised issues of whether private homes are always better than institutions, where sadistic people, at least some of the time, control themselves somewhat for fear of being ratted by fellow workers or get fired when they don’t. The author needs to demonstrate that she has at least a minimal awareness that not everyone would agree with her that there is no such thing as mental illness or that protective institutions are an oxymoron, the horrors of the eugenics program at the Michener Centre notwithstanding.  And she needs, as do all scholars, to have enough humility to ask, “Are there people who should be protected from interviewers like myself in their own interests?” In brief, she needs to demonstrate that she is not so out of it as to think that everyone is severely normal and able to look out for their own needs. Sometimes a bit less Foucault and a bit more experience of the real world benefits academics.”

Suggestions?

 

BTW, if you wanted some context, the original article is in downloadable form here (I hope – links being what they are):

https://www.academia.edu/1531146/Contested_memories_efforts_of_the_powerful_to_silence_former_inmates_histories_of_life_in_an_institution_for_mental_defectives

 

Thanks.

 

Claudia Malacrida

Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology

University of Lethbridge

UHall A-890, 4401 University Drive

Lethbridge, Alberta

Canada T1K 3M4

 

Tel: (403) 329-2738

Fax: (403) 329-2085

email: [log in to unmask]

 

http://directory.uleth.ca/users/claudia.malacrida?no_headers=1

http://uleth.academia.edu/claudiamalacrida

 

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