Broadcastability: Season 3, Episode 5: Simo Vehmas: A Philosophical Chat about Language, Class and Disability: English transcript  

Titles: 

Introduction [00:00:00]: 

Guest Introduction [00:01:54,880]: 

Interest in Disability and early influences [00:02:48,660]: 

Challenging Disability studies [00:12:58,370]: 

Linguistic differences in disability [00:17:00,420]:

Disability as a contextual element [00:23:38,860]: 

Cultural and societal differences when it comes to disability [00:26:53,270]:  

Class and disability studies [00:34:08,350]: 

Sheltered workshops: segregation or integration? [00:36:48,190]: 

Influence of the research about disability [00:41:17,270]:   

Social model of disability [00:42:53,270]: 

A cultural understanding of vulnerability [00:48:39]:

Conclusion [00:54:02,290]:  

Introduction [00:00:00]: 

Simo Vehmas

[00:00:00,000] I'm more like an intellectual troublemaker because I find somehow consensus to be boring. And if I start challenging the views that the audience believes in, and the principles that I believe in myself as well, then there's a chance that I end up somewhere interesting. And there's a chance that I might learn something.

Chloë Atkins

[00:00:30,180] Welcome to Season 3 of Broadcastability, a podcast by, for, and about people with disabilities.

Lark Huska

[00:00:37,470] Broadcastability is a PROUD project production. Based in Toronto, Canada. Visit theproudproject. ca to learn more. This podcast was recorded and produced on the traditional and ancestral territories of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Mississaugas of the Credit River. This territory is covered by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, a treaty made between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas, Haudenosaunee, and Allied Nations to protect the resources of the Great Lakes and the surrounding areas.

This podcast was also partially produced on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. We also wish to acknowledge the Indigenous nations across Turtle Island, also known as North America, where we conduct our research and record this podcast.

Chloë Atkins

[00:01:33,230] We're very excited by the upcoming episodes because this season we focus on research and disability. We highlight individuals who are undertaking research in disability at a variety of levels and in different locals. We interview students, advocates, academics, and professionals. who offer distinct perspectives on composing and carrying out research on disability.

Guest Introduction [00:01:54,880]: 

Charlotte Flameng

[00:01:54,880] Hello everyone. My name is Charlotte Flameng and I'm a research assistant on the PROUD Project team. For the fifth episode of our new season focusing on disability research, I will be your co-host with Chloe Atkins, co-executive director of the PROUD Project. Our guest today is Simo Vehmas. He's a Finnish professor of special education at the University of Stockholm in Sweden. Together, we discussed the complexities around language and terminology in disability, with different cultural contexts shaping preferences. We also explored the role of class and privilege within disability studies.

Simo told us what spiked his interest for the subject and emphasized the need for effective communication and dissemination of research findings to broader audiences beyond academia. We hope you enjoy as much as we did, and thank you for listening.

Interest in Disability and early influences [00:02:48,660]: 

 Chloë Atkins

[00:02:48,660] Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got into doing this and what captured your imagination to do disability.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:02:56,780] Well, my story is a bit unusual in the sense that I don't have any family members because usually there's some sort of a personal connection. And so, I wasn't disabled. I didn't have any disabled family members. So I just, after school, before going to university, I somehow ended up working in a kindergarten for one year. And then they gave me, they told me the first day that I would be responsible for taking care of two boys with intellectual disability. And I was like, what does that even mean? 

 And I worked with those two boys for that one year, mainly with them. And at first, I hated it. You know, first few weeks was really, I thought they were a complete pain in the ass. And then, but then, somehow, it changed. And I began to enjoy it. And I remember thinking after a few weeks or a couple of months that the so-called normal kids seemed a bit boring. Because it was always kind of, every day was a bit of an adventure. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way, but it wasn't boring.

 And that's how I got into it. And then I thought, well, because I didn't have any idea what I would do in university. I wasn't very particularly good at school. I was more— you know, more into extracurricular activities. And then I thought, well, maybe, you know, something to do with disability. And the only alternative at the time in Finland was really studying special education, which then I realized at the time was very conservative. There wasn't that much about disability. But then I kind of found on my own that there was talk of normalization. Which had some interest to me, but… 

 Chloë Atkins

[00:05:07,440] Can you talk about that a little bit? Because I think your term is might be different than some people else.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:05:10,360] So normalization was—this, uh, kind of a… It would be too pompous to call it a theory, but kind of theoretical or kind of, it's called normalization principle. Which is based on what: the idea that people with intellectual disabilities should have the possibility to live similar kinds of lives than other people in their society or in that culture live. So they should be able to live normal lives. That's why it's called normalization. That we should normalize their lives, not normalize them. Not so the point was not to make people with intellectual disabilities as normal. But it's just the name normalization had a bad, you know, a bad vibe. And I, but it was very popular still in Nordic countries, like in the early 90s or so. But what really made me kind of interested was that I simultaneously found on my own kind of the British disability studies. So the materialist account, the stuff by Michael Oliver and the others. And also I started studying philosophy. So I read people like Peter Singer. Uh.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:06:33,220] Yay, Peter Singer.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:06:35,390] And those kind of, these two different worlds kind of fascinated me. So I had a background, I was thinking of these two boys. And everything that what Mike Oliver and the rest of them said, that disability is very much about social discrimination, it's about society, it's not so much about bodies, and it's kind of a—and I, and I— I agreed and disagreed with a lot of it. But for the first time for me, it was intellectually something that was interesting. I never was that interested in why some kids have difficulties in learning to read and write in an appropriate manner— in an expected manner and what should we do about it. It's important, but I was never interested in that. But that social model and then was something that I found interesting. And then, when I read philosophy, which kind of and I soon realized that, in pretty much all the traditional ethical theories, the way they depict human beings was in the way that excluded people with intellectual disability from humanity.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:07:52,190] Absolutely. They're the exception and they set them aside. That's an exception. I'm talking about real people now.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:07:57,630] Yeah, and I thought that's, I found that a bit disturbing, but also fascinating. And when I read Peter Singer and Helga Kuhse and some philosophers saying, you know, that saying that doing selective abortion or infanticide is not just justified but might be advisable. I thought, well, OK, I want to do this. I want to, you know, I just wanted to understand that better. And that's how I got actually into doing disability, Disability Studies and Disability Scholarship.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:08:39,900] But we're kindred spirits in that sense, because I have spent years as quote unquote a political scientist and political theorist surrounded by people who are talking about social justice all the time. And disability, they simply could not bring into their frame. It was as being one that was one of social justice. It just, it wasn't. And I, for years, said, 'Look, disability is fascinating in terms of it should be the test.' We should be only talking about it because it challenges two things about liberal democracies. One is the presumption of reason. Which I think is faulty in all of us. You know, the rational man standard, which is what common law is based on in England and here. 

And also the sense of autonomy that, you know, that we're all autonomous beings, which we're not. You know, I often think of, here, they're called personal support workers. The people come in and help people get out of bed and get dressed and all that stuff. And I'm thinking, yeah, all the world's CEOs have personal support workers coming in every day and facilitating their lives. And this is, and yet, we discriminate against this group. So I felt like, at a theoretical level, when I went to legal conferences, I was like, 'No, this is. This is. This is where the meat is.' Like, you should be really thinking about this.

Simo Vehmas

[00:09:49,560] Yeah, exactly. I have to say, by the way, digress. You being Canadian, you say, 'kindred spirit.' At the time, I was also reading Lucy Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, and so on, at the age of 20 something. And so that was part of the story as well. But so, OK, like, when I read, for instance, stuff like Peter Singer and others like moral philosophers, people who are incredibly smart. And I thought that how limited view was about disability. And often I found myself thinking, 'I wonder what his life story is. What made him think like that? And I thought that, well, that would be interesting. In general, it's kind of a trying to find how to understand one's narrative, personal narrative, and how that has contributed to one's career as an intellectual.' 

 And I realized later on that, for myself, even though I didn't have a personal connection to disability, I think the reason why I found disability so interesting and why it resonated with my own experience was the fact that I grew up in a very kind of a traditional and conservative environment and there was plenty of norms and rules there. How, about humanity and about manhood, uh, what kind of, how proper a nice boy should act and how proper men should be like, and I always had a bit of a problem with those norms. I was like, 'Why?' I grew up pretty much all my youth, from very early on as a child already, I had a problem with these, with these different kinds of norms. So, I kind of felt that, somehow, disability, I was somehow in the same gang with them, that I didn't fit in in some way.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:11:56,240] That's fascinating. I mean, I actually, I have the same impulse. I'm also interested because I'm even interested by my own impulses. Why am, why am I veering towards this? Why is this attractive to me? Why am I taking this position? Because I often think. It's an emotional thing. And then my logic follows, right? That I sort of think, 'Oh, intuitively, I want a position.' And I then start to backtrack and think, 'Well, why am I doing that? Like, why am I, why do I have a response on a position?' And I think I find it interesting you thought about Peter Singer because Peter Singer is so deeply— I mean he's... He's very powerful in terms of his role in our communities, and to hold the chair that he does at Princeton. And did you ever read, did you ever see the New York Times interview where, it's now escaping me. She's wonderful. I love her. And she's now dead. It'll come to me. She was— Oh, yes…

 Simo Vehmas

[00:12:51,100] Harriet, Harriet.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:12:55,030] Harriet exactly. Johnson, something Johnson.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:12:57,310] Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

 Challenging Disability studies [00:12:58,370]: 

 Chloë Atkins

[00:12:58,370] Yeah, fabulous. I've read her, I've read a lot of her, like almost everything she wrote and just really such a bright, capable individual in that. That interview was fascinating to me and how she felt about it. But it didn't transform him in any way. I find that really interesting. It did not move. I'm intrigued whether you think… Okay, this is the question that's just emerged for me. I'm very interested in this. You and I go and speak to different audiences, but in some sense, we're preaching to the choir. People who come to see us are interested in disability. But it's when I have difficulty trying to get other people who are interested in democracy or to get them to understand— no, this is actually— it's relevant to you, right? How do you deal with that? How do you manage that or think about it? When you give papers, you're giving papers to people who are thinking the same as you. They're interested in disability. They're there because they're interested. disability. I do have, I mean, some of them still have a very large, they have a bent in them, like a muscle in them that still is thinking of it a bit like social, as charity. And I tend to think of it as a social justice issue. But— how do you i want that audience to be broader right? I want the regular guy on the street to go ah that makes sense right?

 Simo Vehmas

[00:14:12,400] Well my way of dealing with that, and which I also realized a bit later, has been saying if I if I realize that I'm talking to an audience like to a philosophical audience or more like a disability studies audience I start challenging the norms and the principles within that audience.

 And it's, I'm not trying to present myself as some kind of intellectual hero. It's more like, 'Hi.' I don't know— maybe it's something about my troubled childhood or whatever, but I feel, I, I, that I'm more like an intellectual troublemaker. Because I find somehow consensus to be boring, and if I start challenging the views that the audience believes in, and the principles that I believe in myself as well, then there's a chance that I end up somewhere interesting. And there's a chance that I might learn something.  

And honestly, I've always done this for myself. I started as a when I started doing PhD, I thought, first of all, I shall save all disabled people from the evil philosophers. But then I soon realized, well, if I want to say then doing philosophy is not the way to do it. Because, I mean, there's a handful of people who will ever read my papers. And only half of them will understand or like them anyway. But, well, I'm not as cynical as I just said, but it is… And I've always done the kind of stuff that I thought was of interest to me. Yeah and that, so that's how I dealt with it and much of, like, when you refer to that paper in Disability and Society, it was also, uh, that I was, I was, you know, doing with a colleague of mine, a friend of mine, Nick Watson, that we were questioning and criticizing our friends' views and people that we are friendly with.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:16:51,150] Exactly, yeah.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:16:52,460] That. Was that an answer to your question?

 Chloë Atkins

[00:16:55,600] I think it is an answer. It is an answer. Actually, I want to bring Charlotte in. I've been rude. We've done this all.

 Linguistic differences in disability [00:17:00,420]: 

 Charlotte Flameng

[00:17:00,420] No problem. So I was wondering, because you've spent about a year in Paris, right, studying well, working on disability studies as well, and I was wondering if you found any main differences between the francophone views on disability studies, and what I suppose, the anglophone view, that, you were probably working on? 

 Simo Vehmas

[00:17:29,350] Well, the problem is that, if one doesn't speak French or read French, it's a bit difficult to get to know their stuff because they write almost exclusively their stuff in French. And I met some nice, interesting colleagues there. And then they said, 'You're welcome to our seminars, but they're all in French.' And I said, 'Well, that's no good for me.' So I have very limited knowledge. I know something about it, like the French political thinking, like emphasizing the universal human rights instead of, like, particular arrangements made specifically for certain minority groups. So I'm not sure, but it feels like that we are maybe in the Scandinavia and possibly in North America as well, that we are on the way, that at least among, like liberal lefties, there's like a tendency towards, rights that are tailored more for different groups of people. I don't, and that may, I don't know to what extent that applies, to what extent that is true. And to what extent that is significant. For me, what I found the differences for me were mostly perhaps cultural and very mundane things. Like, for instance, like language, disability language, like that they use “handicap”.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:19:23,050] There's so many debates about this. I get a little, sorry, I get a little frustrated by like this obsession about language when they're actually material things that need to be done, right? I agree.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:19:35,350] And Swedes are a bit like North Americans or Brits in that respect. Here, people pay much too often attention to the way they speak rather than to what they say. And I'm not I'm not bothered about language that much. But what I like, so what I liked about the French because what seems first some sort of arrogance, but they just say, well, why should we care? If handicap is offensive to the Americans, well, it is not for us. And fair enough actually, because it's not, it's partly arrogance but it's also something that is, I would say like healthy self-confidence and, you know, a healthy kind of a pride over their own cultural heritage and their linguistic heritage and their own language. I think that's great because there's a great worry in Nordic countries now that we are losing our own, especially in academia, we're losing our own language. Because increasingly people are writing everything in English.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:20:46,060] It's interesting. The “handicap” is so offensive here because what it does is it's cap in hand for begging. That's where it comes from. Well, there was, in the 12th, I think it's the 13th century, and there start to be laws— or maybe in the 14th century in England— in which it is legal for people who are disabled, cripples, to beg, but no one else, right? So there is this sort of, they have this right to have a cap in hand. And so, this is why I think disability people here in the Anglophone world have been so much against it.  

But the other part that I found… So that's not going to carry forward into France. But I actually found a very interesting thing. There's a phrase, which I like, and I've translated it, in French:  'les personnes en situation de handicap.' So a person In the context of being disabled, right? And to me that captures a bit better, a sort of that social model. It is a bit awkward, but I first heard it in a Quebec interview, and then I heard it a bit more in France. Now, people don't use it. The thing is, people don't try to be politically as correct as they do here. The French, as I say, couldn't give a damn about it. But I said, I really like this term. He said, 'Yeah, but hardly anyone ever uses it that way.' But I did like that. It put the disabling context in place. 

But I'll give you another example, writing for disability in society, I usually put— I'm going to use a whole lot of phrases, because just for the ease of language, instead of repeating the same phrase for disability, and they refuse to accept it, and they don't want… They either don't they don't like to say no, they like disabled person, but they don't like person with disability with a disability, and so we're going through and scrubbing. And I just find this is at some level, forgive me, perverse that this is, you know, the hell to die on, these things.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:22:53,190] And handicap, interestingly, like in Sweden, was in the 70s and 80s, it was a progressive term because it described state of the society. Handicap wasn't about individuals, it wasn't about their impairment, so handicap meant actually the handicap of society that doesn't take into account human diversity. Originally, it was a medical term like in the 50s, but in the 80s, it was a very progressive term. Due to international influence and what else? It became just inappropriate after a few years. And this is what happens with every word, every terminology, that they kind of get contracted with stigma. And then.

 Disability as a contextual element [00:23:38,860]: 

 Chloë Atkins

[00:23:38,860] I've been thinking about this because, as I said, my disabilities are full range. And I've also, you know, I have a wife and children and, you know, which is rare to be honest, people don't think of disabled people as severe as having these things. But what I've realized is, on the surface, I appear to be the disabled one. Every single member of my family has traits that in some sense are both their strengths and their weaknesses, that they have to accommodate, and somehow… You're wearing glasses. Now, if you've been born before glasses were possible, you would be deeply impaired by that. And you may well have actually burned yourself. You may have fallen. You know, the loss of eyesight, I think one of the reasons why we have increasingly older populations is cataract surgery is that people are no longer tripping and falling downstairs. They're not, you know, they're injuries that they can see. So I sort of, I've begun to think about things that we have, some of them are vastly more severe than others for some people. And that we make adjustments for them, we constantly do.

 Like you know, you walk into you're chatting to a friend, you open a door, going into an auditorium where someone's speaking, and you immediately lower your voice, like that's not appropriate in that kind of situation. You're not going to just keep talking. I and I get a lot of resistance around this, and I'm being really sacrilegious, but I was just I'm trying to find… there's a study I want to carry out in which I want to show how adaptive people are. That, you know, being disabled isn't such an odd thing. Like when you break your leg, you learn how to use crutches and you learn how to go up and down. Like we adapt regularly to our traits. I don't know what you think about that? I'm throwing that out there.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:25:15,790] Yeah, yes, we do. And well, I am, I was a couple of days ago doing a paper in Finland about vulnerability. And then they asked me, it's like, is vulnerability someone but someone who's so-called non-disabled? Is it something you can kind of prepare yourself to? And just kind of a… So while I started, I realized that I was going to die at the age of 39. And every since then, I've been thinking about death every day. And I'm not sure it's been a very productive process. But anyway, the truth is that people really adapt. Like my other, I have two brothers. The other one is a physician. And he says that he gets on a constant basis surprised by the human spirit that people who say that, are very solemnly saying that after that or what— what that happens when I lose this capability, I want to die. And when that happens, they don't.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:26:34,350] They don't. They've adapted. They've discovered they can be happy without their, you know, eyesight or their…

 Simo Vehmas

[00:26:40,200] Yeah and that that seems to be the kind of yeah the common story.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:26:49,570] So I'm going to, I mean, God, we could talk for hours. Do you know this? Yeah.

 Cultural and societal differences when it comes to disability [00:26:53,270]:  

 Simo Vehmas

[00:26:53,270] Oh, by the way, French. I have to say one more thing, because you asked about French and France. By the way, I fell in love with France. But one of the things was they…The idea was accessibility, and I'm not just referring to last year but I mean previously, I've been wondering that as well. Even in events that include disability issues and where there are people with different kinds of mobility impairments, often, the accessibility is less than great. And for some reason, they don't seem to have it.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:27:33,590] Let's be honest, it's bad. And the other thing that I noticed in the interviews is the equipment, the wheelchairs, all these devices, they're terrible— like really, 20 years behind than here.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:27:40,390] And for some reason they don't seem to have a problem with that. And that's something I didn't dare to kind of ask. Like I went to give a paper in one and I watched this guy with cerebral palsy walking with a great difficulty upstairs because there was no lift. And I was like, 'Well. This is this is not cool, why are you doing this?’ Why didn't you have it on? But I didn't have it in me. It would have ruined the atmosphere, I suppose, to make that kind of question. But that that is something that I that I found interesting and that I would like to understand a bit better. Is it just… I mean, because it is not that they don't care. So what is it then?

 Charlotte Flameng

[00:28:37,850] We asked a lot of those questions to the people we interviewed in France, it was mostly a study about employment, right? Like Chloe was saying. And so then accommodation of the workplace etc. And France was really bad. Even the transportation system like the subway isn't accessible at all. 

 Simo Vehmas

[00:29:02,420] um yeah Yeah.

 Charlotte Flameng

[00:29:04,760] And so we asked those questions and people were not, obviously, were not happy with the state of accessibility in the country and in the different workplaces. But I don't know, maybe it's such old cities as well? And difficulty to change any of that… Chloe, you want to add something?

Chloë Atkins

[00:29:31,920] I'm going to propose something. I'm being a political theorist here. I'm thinking about Rousseau. One of my kids has been reading Rousseau. He's refreshed. I don't teach right now, but he's refreshed my memory a little bit. But I think, as you started about the universal nation of universal human rights, and I think there's a notion of the French “citoyen”, like the citizen is this, you know, Rousseau writes at one point that we're equal, we're rational, he has this whole vision of humanity. And he says, since we all have these traits, we're all actually going to choose the same thing, likely. And therefore, you sort of get this homogeneity, I think in this conception of the liberal democratic person in France. 

And I think it's in the school systems, they really don't accommodate. I had some of my kids at one point in the French school system here. And it was amazing how, you know, it's very uniform. They do not like, like, if you have, they're not going to have two learning disabled or cognitively impaired children in the class. They're just not going to do it. Or not very easily, at least in my experience. 

 But I just think there's this vision. It's the same thing here, where, here in Canada, if you're a Sikh, you can wear your turban. You can wear, if you're Jewish, you can wear your kippah. In France, those have been forbidden. There's meant to be uniformity of what… Everyone is meant to be the same. There's not meant to be exceptions. So for us, the diversity— is like, oh, everybody gets to do what they want to, a point and then we are, and then but in France is no, no, no, you don't— you have to be French, and a French person is like this, and I think maybe that's part of the issue with disability is that vision isn't there, sorry. 

 Simo Vehmas

[00:30:53,240] yeah, because yeah, at this and yeah, at the same time, because like, there were many of the organizations, starting from schools and really workplaces are very authoritarian, very, like there's a there's a, very hierarchical. And there's very authoritarian culture there. It's like if it's a teacher who decides and it's the adults who decide and children are just, you know. Because to us, the children are very well behaved there, for instance, in restaurants, because they don't really have a voice apparently there. But at the same time, it's very authoritarian, but then they're very eager to go on the streets and protest against everything. And that's fascinating. Fascinating, like a like a like a clash there of different kinds of mentalities.

 Charlotte Flameng

[00:32:07,240] I was going to say, it's true, growing up in Belgium, which in the school system, etc., it is very similar to, like hierarchical and that authority from the teacher and the parents, etc., that that's very similar in Belgium. And then, it was shocking when I came to Canada, that difference. And the diversity, especially in Toronto, let's be honest, more so than out West, I would say, the diversity of people. It was just way less uniform than the society in Belgium and in France. So I think you’ve got a point Chloë in that.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:32:46,610] I even found that teaching, like at one point I did it, like you went to the States, this was at Cornell. And what was I'd always up to that point taught in Canada. I'd spent some sort of states when I was younger, but nonetheless, what I found is here I was at Cornell and there was probably one black student in my class, maybe two, couple of Asians. But in fact, it was very homogeneous in terms of the class I was getting— like this was an Ivy League. So you either have people who are upper class, and then some people who were scholarship students and um, very few people of color or different. The diversity wasn't there, and I actually found that a little bit in Calgary because I taught it there as well. Because it— you've got— you've got a lot of diversity because oil is found all over the world. Some families move there, their fathers are geologists, but it was the same class of kids, right? 

 And what I found really— I was almost relieved to come back to Canada where the diversity in the classroom was really challenging. You could get really thrown on your feet by a question. Actually, though, it's challenging as a lecturer, it's interesting. Like it really, it pushes you in ways when you're teaching, particularly core materials, you know, core materials such as philosophy, right? These are the way, this is the great influences. And I found it, yeah, the diversity is good for, at least for me.

 Class and disability studies [00:34:08,350]: 

 Simo Vehmas

[00:34:08,350] Yeah, and talking about class, what is interesting is that there's so very little engagement about class in disability studies. We talk about poverty, but we rarely talk about class. There is kind of a like this kind of a whispering about class. For instance, I remember when I kind of entered personally the British disability studies scene, and I happened to be a friend of, I became friends with Tom Shakespeare already in late 90s. And people knew that I knew him. And what I soon realized that many people had problems with Tom because he's upper class. And which you can already hear when he opens his mouth. And that was so bizarre to me, that in UK that made a difference so that was a That was a dismerit. And in the UK, that was a dismerit in that scene. For him.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:35:14,640] I think you're right. We don't talk. I mean, class is, we're really careful about, to be honest, because here, particularly in North America, it's money. It's interpreted as money. It's a little education. And so, I mean, do you find that, Charlotte, that we don't talk about class in the same way you might have in Belgium or Europe?

 Charlotte Flameng

[00:35:30,230] Definitely. In Belgium there's a book that comes out every year with all the noble families.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:35:36,200] Right.

 Charlotte Flameng

[00:35:37,060] The Red Book. We talk about it so much more. It shows in your last name.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:35:42,680] Well, it's the same in Sweden, which is a much more class society than in Finland, where all Finns are still peasants. We have some money, but basically peasants. I can say this.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:35:52,610] That's who resisted the Soviets, you know.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:35:55,950] Literate peasants nowadays, many of us. Yes. Yeah, it is fascinating why it is such a kind of a difficult issue, because it's not about money. It is about money as well. It is about privilege in general. And privilege is difficult. When there's a disabled person who's privileged, people have an issue with that. We don't know how to deal with that. For some reason. And Jan Grue, by the way, who's a brilliant Norwegian scholar, has written a great chapter about this in a book that I edited together with Don Kulik. It's about clashing vulnerabilities, the book, and it just came out— actually this week, I think. I still haven't got a copy of it.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:36:45,030] But I want to read it. So just remember that.

Simo Vehmas

[00:36:47,350] Yeah.

 Sheltered workshops: segregation or integration? [00:36:48,190]: 

 Chloë Atkins

[00:36:48,190] I'm going to ask you, sort of, the other question: I had it now that the one that I had is escaping me. Oh, I know. Okay, so I'm pushing you on certain things because things I'm battling with as I think about my own research. In North America, the notion of what we call a sheltered workshop, where there's a special place where people work. They are actually, in the US, still allowed to be paid less. I think there may be cases in Canada. They may have been closed. And generally, it's for people with cognitive impairments rather than physical ones. But nonetheless, there is a pejorative sort of sense that these are bad. Like, these are bad places. They're underpaid. It creates a second class, a lower class of worker. They're not really valued, blah, blah, blah. And I think— To be honest, that's probably the case. 

 However, in my study, there were two sort of things that emerged. Three, actually, I saw. So in the U. S., there were sort of sheltered workshops. There was a separate division where nonprofits like, let's say, if you were deaf or if you were blind, there was a company that was formed that was mainly to employ blind or deaf people, and they then sought out contracts. Their whole ethos was around supporting this community. And they didn't really care about whether they made money as long as they broke even, like as they could continue the activities. There was a great one called Basma Enterprises, which they're all blind people and they make a fair amount of money and they return that money into the rehabilitation and the facilitating people who are blind. So that's where their profit goes, and they just keep running. It’s somewhere in the Midwest. 

 So in France and well in Belgium, they also had these sheltered workshops. It was mixed, from what I could tell, it was both cognitive as well as physical impairments and people could be thrown together, which we didn't do here so much. But then France had this APF, which emerged, I think, out of paraplegics post-war, maybe. And they created a separate workforce. And they have, again non-profit; they don't have to make a profit; they're allowed to bid on government you know all sorts of contracts. They just have to break even. But they're highly accessible work environments, but they're not just for the disabled. So the people, when we interviewed them were uniformly much happier, whether they were able-bodied or disabled, working for an APF industry, whatever it may be, or wherever in France, than anywhere else. 

 And that sort of converted, like. It really changed my understanding of what this might be. There was career mobility happening for people, which wasn't happening elsewhere. So I was wondering what you think about that. A little bit about this: should we have separated, segregated? It's the same thing about— do we have segregated education? Don't know. It's both positive and negative to integrate or not integrate.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:39:43,270] Well, the labor market is so complicated these days. It was somehow easier a few decades ago. Because we have such high requirements for so-called simple jobs now. So it is more difficult for people in in the current labor market to be included, especially for people with cognitive and intellectual disabilities. How should I put it? Sometimes it happens that the people themselves are less bothered than others about their own situation. So, many people with intellectual disabilities have been perfectly happy in sheltered workshops. Although we think that they are discriminatory, and they are. Many people, we think that group homes are practically institutions. A lot of people with intellectual disabilities prefer to live in them rather than by themselves.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:40:46,260] Yeah. Yeah. We project to them what we think they should be doing.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:40:51,530] Yeah, because for many of them, like, even a job is— it's mostly for them— is that it's something meaningful to do, it's going to a community. Entering every day, meeting people, feeling yourself valued. And it's not about money and it's not about making a career. It's very much there in… 

 Influence of the research about disability [00:41:17,270]:   

 Chloë Atkins

[00:41:17,270] Well, it's a social engagement. Okay, so my question is, one of the questions we already sent to you was, okay, so given what you're doing, what do you hope for what you're doing? Like you said— who reads philosophy— that's not how we're going to change the world, but in some ways, it does change the world. So I'm intrigued about what you think your work contributes, what you hope your work contributes to this discussion.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:41:43,180] Well, I hope that it helps people to kind of engage with critical thinking. And to be, to think about, from multiple perspectives, about the principles and thoughts that they have adopted or the practices that they have adopted in their work. that kind of question on a regular basis like: 'Why am I thinking the way I'm thinking? Why am I doing what I'm doing? And it does, as a Finn and as me, I tend to, I really, I like self-deprecation. I don't believe in self-praise. Except after a few drinks. But it is true that what we say, as an academic, what I write or what I talk to students, it does have an effect. Some people actually take seriously what we say.

 Social model of disability [00:42:53,270]: 

 Chloë Atkins

[00:42:53,270] So tell me, you're thinking of something as you say that. So how is what's the evidence for you when you say it has effect?

 Simo Vehmas

[00:42:59,310] Like, It's evident when you see, when you talk to people, you see, like, visually, the bulbs going. And then they start talking. And then you realize there's something going on. And those are really great moments. And I do get feedback as well, but then we also know from history, like I mentioned Mike Oliver previously. I disagree vehemently about of the stuff that he wrote, but he, and I thought it was sloppy work in some sense, but at the same time it was brilliant work also. And it made a huge tremendous effect and it changed so many things so it was incredibly valuable work.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:43:48,040] So, can you be specific a little bit about how you think about that? Do you mind?

 Simo Vehmas

[00:43:53,060] Just the basic idea that disability is not about me, is not about my It's about society as being arranged for different kinds of bodies. I mean, the bodies that, and I don't fit in to that expectation. And that is the wrong. I'm not wrong kind of person. It's the wrong kind of society. And how that reversed people’s thinking, and that was revolutionary.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:44:20,240] And how do you think he's wrong, where do you take criticism with that?

 Simo Vehmas

[00:44:25,320] Sorry? Oh, no, no, no. Well, so what is wrong? No, no, no. I think that the problem with the social model of disability in the British materialist account and in Oliver's account that they too one-sidedly concentrate on the social, and ignored and didn't really want to engage with difficulties with embodiments.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:44:55,020] It's exactly I feel the same way is that you can never escape the fact, your embodiment. I mean, the feminist theory also had the same issue. I actually, when I started, took a lot of inspiration from what are called critical legal race theorists in the States, where they, Black law professors, sort of said, 'Yeah, we have rights, but this is, here's, I'll tell you some stories from my life, right? Which is, you know, I rushed to a store at five o'clock in the afternoon. It's a clothing store. I'm getting a present for some party. And they lock the door as they see me coming towards them because I embody, my blackness embodies a threat for them. No right is going to change that. No abstract law right is going to change that. 

 And so it's interesting. I got to writing about this really through them. I was very interested in how their sense of experience was different. And then people with disabilities were doing the same thing. I also, for instance, on this podcast, I generally, you know, uh, for our last one, we just released, I did an experimental treatment which I think has changed my life— like it saved my life. And I’m the 27th person to have done it. I found it on my own. But so I interviewed the team, right? Because it's not very well published. But one of the things I say and I believe it is: People with disabilities have irregular bodies, but they also require medical management a lot of the time. And it really matters how well you, as an individual, have your needs, you can express your needs and get them met by medical professionals so that you can continue to function well, right? Interplay is ignored a great deal in critical disability studies. I just feel like you can't ignore it. It is a feature of most people's lives with some disability that they have a clinical interaction which deeply influences how they function in society. And we need to change those interactions, right? 

 Simo Vehmas

[00:46:51,010] Right, yeah. And even, I mean, more than embodiment, what social models and what disability studies and disability activists have kind of a sideline is the intellectual and cognitive diversity among people. So people with intellectual disabilities have been the most marginalized people. Even within disability studies and disability activism. It's only very recently, during the past 10 years or so, that kind of a disability activists have acknowledged this problem and kind of trying to… 

 Chloë Atkins

[00:47:27,850] Well, I mean, I even say it for myself, I focus on physical disabilities because that's I feel like. If you're working with cognitive impairments, it's a different sense of how you get consent from people and what you're going to talk about and what you're actually, yeah, what you're writing about and what you're thinking about. 

 And the other class is also this, actually, is toileting. If you can toilet yourself. But it's a different, you are a different class than someone who has to wear a diaper or has to be taken to the bathroom. It's not talked about very much, but there really is a difference between that first group and that second group. And so, yeah, there are these classes and there's also this whole thing around Paralympians— the sense of the athletic disabled person, right? That's just, you know what? Superior athletes are as common in disability as the rest of the world. It's not like everyone, most people with disabilities don't have that. That's not what's going on. And so the posters are all of these superior athletic. And it also contributes to this notion of overcoming, like they develop themselves so physically they overcome.

 A cultural understanding of vulnerability [00:48:39]:

 Yeah, anyway, I could talk for ages. I'm going to ask you another question. Forgive me if I'm taking your time. You, as a Scandinavian, is there a the difference between your peasant Finns and the Swedes in understanding vulnerability, because vulnerability is something, again, I'm really fascinated by. And perhaps also the rest of Europe and the rest of the world. I mean, is there a regional thing that you share, that the Finns and the Swedes share, or is there a division in understanding this? I mean, just, you've got an interesting perspective. 

 Simo Vehmas

[00:49:17,990] In terms of understanding your vulnerability? Oh, that's a tough one.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:49:19,900] How about, is there a flavor of vulnerability or a flavor of disability management? Or just conception that's different, let's say, in the Scandinavian region versus what's happening in North America or England or France? I mean, is it much the same?

 Let me ask you a question. My understanding is that in Sweden, I've been trying to get this done for years and it's not going to happen. Is it that in Sweden, if you rebuild a bathroom, like you're doing a house renovation, there has to be an accessible bathroom. It has to meet certain parameters, regardless of the size of the house. And I don't know whether it's regional or not, but I know in one instance, this was the case. Friends of mine who live in Zurich say they've watched the same thing, that they have— sort of by law, whether it's local or not—it's required in their apartment to have an accessible bathroom, that it has to be there. For me, that means you save not just on disability, but it means people can leave hospital earlier. There are all sorts of positive social gains on this, more than just disability.

 Simo Vehmas

[00:50:26,760] I think that's a common standard, I think, pretty much in all Nordic countries, which is being questioned, of course. But yes, I think if there are new like apartments are being built, you need to make it accessible. But if you build your house for yourself, then I'm not sure whether that applies.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:50:49,800] Well, I've been trying to think about my argument. Just again, I- talk a lot and don't write as much as I should, but one of the things I find is that if we were to make our communities more accessible, ultimately—and that includes trying to make… One of the things I just, for instance— is we live in an apartment and it was built, and I asked for the walls in the bathrooms to be reinforced so that we would have no problem putting a grab bar wherever we wanted. I've just got to sort of the forfeit level. And in essence, they didn't do it. They sort of didn't care; they didn't do it, and this became a bit of a bone of contention. But I just think that that's a very simple thing to ask. In a sort of a planning, from a planning point of view, is that bathrooms have reinforced walls so that when somebody has a heart attack or breaks their hip, that they come home and they're not holding onto the towel rail and break the other hip at the ground. 

So I just, I think the more accessible our communities are, and North America has not done this. The ADA has been very successful in the States for public spaces, but it doesn't really affect how we privately live our lives. And Toronto is, to be honest, it's accessible but not really like it's gotten better. I find it stunning. We live in a flat, which is literally a flat, but everybody here, even if you go into an apartment building, they want two stories in their flat, like they want the illusion they're in a house. I'm just thinking, what a waste of space, like. You know, and funnily enough, when I was in New York, now I'm chatting just ridiculously, you know, when I was in wheelchair in New York, going into pre-war apartments was fabulous. They were large rooms. They weren't made to be accessible, but the room sizes and dimensions and how things worked, it was very accessible to me, right? Those old buildings, right?

 Simo Vehmas

[00:52:34,190] Yeah, well, since we're talking nonsense, when I had my country house built 15, 20 years ago, and the builders kind of were wondering why there needs to be a ramp, because you don't need one. Well, when I said, 'Well, one gets older and one I might need it one day.' and then he just looked at me and it's like, 'I don't get it. They still didn't get it.' I said, 'Well, you know. It could happen next weekend when I drink a bit too much and I twist my ankle.' And then, ‘oh, very good thinking.’

 Chloë Atkins

[00:53:12,830] Right. I mean, so it's interesting. But, Simo, I should let you go. So I'd love to do some work with you at some point or get together or have another conversation because this was great. It's such fun to talk with people who are, theoretically, yeah. I do think theory changes the world a bit. 

 Simo Vehmas

[00:53:31,730] It can. Yeah, it can. But it's about communication. And I think in research, we pay too little attention to the way we write because it's not just about doing the research, collecting your data, doing the analysis. The way you communicate is everything. This is, we are in the business of communicating ideas. If you communicate badly, there's no point.

 Conclusion [00:54:02,290]: 

 Chloë Atkins

[00:54:02,290] Anyway, so that was a great conversation. Like, of all the episodes we've had, I felt like the three of us were all sort of leaning forward a little bit.

 Charlotte Flameng

[00:54:11,180] I completely agree. I think we were able to really dig into some subjects we haven't brought up in the past, and that he had an interesting and funny perspective on the field, even on the field of disability studies, he had some good points to put forward.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:54:34,200] Well, we got into the mud a bit around language, like wording. And I mean, he's a philosopher, and I'm a theorist. I don't know whether they're really any different, but we're both sort of. We go into the weeds a bit, so that was a bit of fun. And we did talk a little bit about class, like class, both class, social classes, but classes within disability. And I think that's just beginning to start. We didn't flush it out in any real way, but I'm hoping we can have another conversation again in the future.

 Charlotte Flameng

[00:55:04,880] I really hope so too. I think there's more to discuss.

 Chloë Atkins

[00:55:09,390] Yep, there's a lot more to discuss.

 Charlotte Flameng

[00:55:11,680] This episode of Broadcastability was hosted by Chloe Atkins, a professor at the University of Toronto, and an anti-ableist researcher, and Charlotte Flameng, a research assistant for the PROUD project. This episode was also edited by Charlotte Flameng. Isabelle Avakumovic-Pointon created the artwork and Justin Laurie composed the music. Broadcastability can be found on Apple Music and Spotify, and at broadcastability.ca. Broadcastability is a PROUD Project production based in Toronto, Canada. Visit theproudproject. ca to learn more.