Absent Citizens: Making Citizenship Accessible
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Michael J. Prince Presentation at York University Vanier College March 18, 2010
My locations
Absent citizens and related concepts
What is citizenship
Making citizenship accessible
Continuing thoughts
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Outsider in the inside of the movement
Insider on the outside of the academy
Outsider/Insider connections
Who and what prompted me to write this book
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Absence of persons with disabilities in at least four ways: 1. Lacking formal rights and membership status in political communities 2. Gaps in, and obstacles to actual practices in various aspects of life 3. Overlooked in social science studies and theory 4. Excluded from most definitions and discussions of citizenship
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Absent citizens are the effects of the exercise of power in specific places, certain groups, numerous areas of life and time periods
Absent citizens are not totally outside the community, but are socially produced and politically positioned in marginalizing ways Think always of “absent/present citizens” together 5
Concept
Focus
Authors
Second-class citizens
Economic class and social status
Eisenberg 1982; Roche 1992; Heater 2004
Citizens minus/Citizens plus
Place of First Nations and other indigenous peoples in Canada
Hawthorn-Tremblay reports 1966-67; Cairns 2000; Pothier and Devlin 2006
Underclass
Economic class and race in America
Mouffe 1991
Silenced citizens
Children’s rights and lack of voice
Andreychuk & Fraser 2007
Marginal matrix of citizenship
Social, political and economic oppression
Yuval-Davis, 1997
Un-, sub-, quasi-, marginal citizens, and super-citizens
Hierarchy of human rights and status groups in European community
Nash 2009
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Universalistic income security at adequate and reliable levels through the life course Inclusive education Gainful employment with appropriate supports in inclusive workplaces Affordable and available supply of personal supports, housing, and community services Universal design for physical environments, electoral systems, and systems of communication, transportation and information Mechanisms to tackle systemic discrimination and to promote human rights for all 7
A fluid mix of ideas and frames, relations, resources “A sense of belonging in one’s country and gives each individual the right to participate in society and in its economic and political systems” Scott Task Force Report, 1996 In Absent Citizens, I explore five elements: discourse, legal and equality, democratic and political, fiscal and social, and economic 8
By grounding it in actual lived experiences, embodied needs and capacities
By raising critical awareness and public understanding of status quo
By removing community barriers and social wrongs
By respecting and promoting human rights & human dignities 9
Widespread and thorough inclusion is a reality for a relative minority The project of making citizenship accessible has both theoretical and practical elements (the academy and the movement ; insider/outsider dynamics) Citizenship is a bundle of legal statuses and lived practices of embodied subjects in complex societies with ambivalent values What kinds of politics will support the development of rights, access and inclusion? 10
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Access Centre – Able York
Graduate Program in Critical Disability Studies
Students for Barrier-free Access, University of Toronto
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