A hybrid launch celebrating Catherine Frazee’s book Dispatches from Disabled Country was held online and in Room 707, Daphne Cockwell Complex, 288 Church Street, Toronto Metropolitan University, on Monday, May 29th from 2:00–3:30 p.m.
Video created by Mathew Hon-phun Lui and produced by Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology and Access to Life.
From UBC Press:
“Disability is not our worst-case scenario—our worst-case scenario would be its annihilation.” This is the starting point for this powerful collection of writing by and about Catherine Frazee, disability activist, Officer of the Order of Canada, and poetic scholar of justice.
Catherine Frazee has been a central figure in the disability rights landscape in Canada for decades. Her reasoned and passionate insights are topical and often ahead of their time. Always bold, always progressive, and frequently provocative, Frazee’s work presents an unwavering, fierce commitment to engage in public debate from a position that centres the lives of disabled people.
Shifting the centre for contemporary policy and practice to more fairly reflect the aspirations and entitlements of diverse disabled populations is no small feat. It requires all of us, first and foremost, to unshackle from dominant narratives that equate disability with incapacity, tragedy, and loss.
These selected writings kickstart that process by revealing what has been unfolding for decades just under the radar of ableist society. From ground zero in Disabled Country, Frazee introduces us to “a poetics of identity, an ethos of empathy, and a sanctuary from philosophies of greed and utility.”
Between the lines of this startling and intelligent collection, readers will perceive the contours of a social movement on the rise, a knowing people bound together by struggle and pride, and an essential agenda for anti-ableist reforms in the domains of law, medicine, education, culture, and governance.
Dispatches from Disabled Country is essential reading for all those involved with or interested in disability and disability activism, as well as for learners and educators in politics, medicine, law, sociology, education, and any other field that touches on policy or practice on the lives of people with disabilities.
