Making space for the ‘intellectual’ in geographies of disability

Health & Place 7 (2001) 237–246

Making space for the ‘intellectual’ in geographies of disability

Edward Halla, Robin Kearnsb,*aFaculty of Social Sciences, The Open University, UK

bDepartment of Geography, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand

Accepted 20 January 2001

Abstract

There is a growing body of work on geographies of deinstitutionalisation and its consequences, but the weight of this

scholarship has focussed on people with mental health problems and physically disabled people. With only fewexceptions, the ‘post asylum geographies’ of intellectually disabled people remain neglected by geographers. Weadvocate a redressing of this imbalance. First, we assess reasons for the relative absence of ‘intellectual’ considerations

in geographies of disability. We then consider ways in which the full spectrum of those with mental differences might beincluded in geographical research. We conclude that Wolpert’s call 25 years ago to ‘open closed spaces’ is just asapplicable to our efforts to conceptually link health, place, and disability, as it is to the material welfare of vulnerablegroups in society. # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Intellectual disability; Inclusive research; Disability geography; Post-asylum geographies

Introduction

The two special issues of Health and Place (1997,2000) on the ‘asylum’ demonstrate geography’s continu-

ing contribution to research on the experiences, struc-tures and processes that are involved in the isolation andexclusion of people with mental health problems. Whilewe welcome this burgeoning field of interest, we wish to

argue that a notable omission has been made: thepersonal and social geographies of the many thousandsof intellectually disabled people who have experienced

the asylum and are experiencing the shift to life inmainstream society. In this paper we argue for ‘openingspace’ in geography for intellectual disability (c.f.

Wolpert, 1976). In doing so, we acknowledge at theoutset the range of abilities possessed by such people, aswell as the multiple disabilities experienced by some (e.g.

the so-called intellectually and physically challenged).Our advocacy for this opening of space is organised

into three parts. First, we discuss the small body of

research on the geographies of intellectually disabled

people and question their relative invisibility in thediscipline of geography. Second, we suggest a number ofexplanations for this relative absence. Third, we outline

ways to include the full spectrum of those with ‘mentaldifferences’ (Parr and Butler, 1999, p. 12) in the study ofpost-asylum geographies of people with intellectualdisability.

The absence of the intellectual in geographies of disability

Wolch and Philo interpret geographical research inthe sub-field of mental health as having experienced twobroad phases or waves. A ‘first wave’, ‘‘grounded in

spatial science and often employing quantitative meth-ods, explored the spatial distribution of a variety of‘deviant’ populations’’ while a ‘second wave’, ‘‘rooted in

social theory and utilising mostly qualitative methods,has focused on the social construction of difference’’(Wolch and Philo, 2000, p. 138). In this section we argue

that these two ‘waves’ reflect broader shifts in thegeography of disability and disability theory/politics,

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +64-9-373-7599; fax: +64-9-

373-7434.

E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Kearns).

1353-8292/01/$ - see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

PII: S 1 3 5 3 - 8 2 9 2 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 0 7 - 7

and are developments from which intellectually disabledpeople have largely been omitted.

The ‘first wave’ of geographical research into dis-ability is perhaps better described as a set of separateripples. There were several significant pieces of research

in the 1970s and 1980s, but there was no development ofa distinct research sub-field. For instance, Dear andWolch (1987) and Pinch (1985) exposed the socialexclusion and service dependency experienced by many

disabled people, particularly in central cities. Amongother researchers, Golledge (1990), one of the fewdisabled geographers at the time, tackled the mobility

and access problems of people with visual impairmentand Hahn (1986) contributed to geographical debatethrough discussing the inaccessibility of urban areas for

many disabled people.The ‘second wave’ of research began with the

exchange between Golledge (1993), Butler (1994), Imrie

(1996a) and Gleeson (1996) in the pages of Transactions.This debate redefined the role of geography andgeographers in disability research. The geography ofdisability has rapidly expanded on many fronts and is

now an established sub-field within human geography.A range of themes are outlined by Park et al. (1998) andParr and Butler (1999) including: accessibility, architec-

ture and the oppressive role of the state (Imrie, 1996b);the reproduction of disability in the capitalist economy(Gleeson, 1999); the role of the body in disability

identity, for example in employment (Hall, 1999) and inpublic space (Butler and Bowlby, 1997); the culturalconstruction of disability in different times and spaces(Dorn, 1994, 1999); the material ‘worlds’ of disabled

people’s lives (Dyck, 1995, 1999); and the largely absentfeminist agenda in disability geographies (Chouinard,1997). Two strands arguably run through the above

themes: a recognition and critique of the socio-spatialproduction and experience of disability; and an aware-ness of the importance of reforming the relations of

research to produce a geography more representative ofdisabled people’s experiences (Parr, 1998a; Kitchin,1997; Gleeson, 1999).

This ‘second wave’ was, arguably, the comingtogether of two (not entirely coincidental) forces. First,the socio-political ideas of a disability movement weregathering strength and confidence, and had begun to

permeate into academic spheres. At its heart was arejection of the dominant ‘individual pathology’ modelof disability and the development of an alternative

‘social model’ of oppression (Oliver, 1990; Barnes, 1991;Swain et al., 1993). At the same time, geography wasexperiencing its so-called ‘cultural turn’, a shift from

positivistic and structural conceptions of social pro-cesses to a more intimate and complex geography ofmeanings, identities and the body (Cook et al., 2000; Pile

and Thrift, 1995). Disability was rethought as a sociallyconstructed entity, rather than as a biological certainty,

and as a form of oppression similar to that exposed assexism and racism. Further, disability was seen as

produced by the structures and processes of moderncapitalist society and experienced in a wide range ofways by differently embodied people. Out of this fusing

of disability politics and theory, as well as newgeographical thinking, the ‘geography of disability’was created and the second wave swept over andrefreshed the research agenda.

Mental health/illness has been an implicit themethroughout the short history of disability geography,as reflected in the special issues of Health and Place.

This intertwining of mental health and disabilitygeography had arguably led to the exclusion ofother groups, particularly the intellectually impaired.

Factors that have kept mental health/illness centralto geographical concern include widespread fearsregarding the possible actions of people with mental

health problems; an increasing presence of formerpatients in public spaces; and occasional (yet widelyreported) violent incidents involving people withmental health problems. These combine to maintain

mental health care as an important research interest(Moon, 2000).

Research into the parallel geographical experiences of

intellectually disabled people has emerged only in thelast few years and has been, at best, a footnote todebates on post-asylum geographies. We discuss possi-

ble explanations for this situation later, but for nowdescribe this ‘‘small corpus’’ of geographical work(Wolch and Philo, 2000, p. 138). As with mental healthgeographies, research on intellectual disability falls into

two ‘spatial periods’, inside and outside the asylum.Philo (1987) and Radford and Tipper (1988) examinedthe locational separation of the people committed to the

‘idiot’ asylums of Victorian Britain. Across the Atlantic,Radford and Park (1993) and Park and Radford, (1999)studied the external catchment area geography of

Canada’s earliest and largest asylum for the ‘mentallydeficient’ and its internal geography of enclosing andtherapeutic spaces. Park (1995) and Park et al. (1998)

argues that this research revealed that the asylum‘‘exerted a symbolic influence well beyond its ratherlimited role as the place of residence of a smallproportion of people diagnosed as ‘mentally deficient’

or ‘feeble-minded’’’ (1998, p. 223). In acting as a‘container’ for people deemed ‘mentally deficient’ itclearly stated that they had no place in society.

However, many intellectually disabled people were neverincarcerated in an asylum and together with the nowalmost complete deinstitutionalisation process, the

concern of geographers has rightly shifted to the worldof post-asylum community care. Again, the research onthe experiences of intellectually disabled people is

limited. As Park et al. (1998, pp. 222–223) note,‘‘Wolpert (1980) stands almost alone in examining some

E. Hall, R. Kearns / Health & Place 7 (2001) 237–246238

of the socio-spatial implications of the ‘normalisation’movement prior to its rise in dominance in the 1980s’’.1

As deinstitutionalisation became more established andthe normalisation principle became the dominant under-standing of intellectually disabled people’s ‘proper’ place

in society, the focus of research became the community-based care locations and structures, which in manyinstances meant multiple person accommodation withfull-time staff presence. Radford (1985), Radford and

Phillips (1985a, b) and Metzel (1998a, b) all explored theresidential location of intellectually disabled people.They all conclude that invariably the large, spatially

isolated asylum had been replaced by the apparentfreedom of a life in the community which very often waslife in an ‘asylum without walls’ (Dear and Wolch, 1987,

p. 26).All of the above research can perhaps be regarded as

representing a ‘first wave’ similar to that of mental

health/illness research, in which issues of location,movement and exclusion of intellectually disabledpeople dominated the agenda. However, evidence of a‘second wave’ in which issues of identity, the social

construction of difference and intellectually disabledpeople’s experiences of place are explored is thin on theground. Laws and Radford (1998), like Wolpert (1980),

stand almost alone in taking on a second wave agenda,in their discussion of the experience of place amongst agroup of intellectually disabled people in Toronto. Laws

and Radford criticise the geographical community forits neglect of intellectual disability ‘‘. . . especially incomparison to studies of other marginalized groups suchas the mentally ill’’ (1998, p. 80). They then suggest that

a focus for this research could be the ‘‘. . .distinctiveways in which intellectually disabled people perceivetheir environments and to what extent these perceptions

are coloured by individual life chances and experiences’’(1998, p. 80). They argue that although this neglect canhave a serious material effect on people’s everyday lives,

‘‘only a slender body of knowledge has existed on whichto base the implementation of community-basedpolicies’’ (1998, p. 80).

At the heart of Laws and Radford’s exploration is achallenge to the relations of research. In keeping with

Parr (1998a), they fully involved the subjects of theirresearch in the construction of knowledge regarding

community life experiences in Toronto. Employinginterviewers experienced in working with intellectuallydisabled people, Laws and Radford encouraged them to

allow open-ended discussion that would yield narrativeinformation. In particular, the interviewers ‘‘were morethan willing to listen to stories rather than expectingexact or succinct answers’’ (1998, p. 83). Such research

practices are not only common, but also in many waysnow expected, in other areas of disability research (forexample, Moss and Dyck, 1996). However, in geogra-

phical research on mental health issues and intellectuallydisability this is relatively new territory. Through this‘telling of stories’, Laws and Radford produced a series

of insightful ‘portraits’ of the people interviewed, whichthey argue ‘‘shed light on the lives of respondents, the‘voices from the shadows’, who recounted their experi-

ences for us’’ (1998, p. 88). By giving a ‘place in the light’to people so often rendered invisible by public andacademia alike, the authors do much more than simply‘fill a gap’ in the research. They also provide a number of

general pointers for disability research. These include:first, the importance of listening to the ‘voices’ of thoserendered invisible (and not just responding to those with

the loudest voices and in the most clearly oppressivesituation); second, the importance of ‘holding’ the dualnotion of the lives and experiences of disabled people as

similar and different to non-disabled people’s lives; andthird, the critical importance of understanding andrepresenting the diversity of experiences of disabledpeople (some severely economically and socially margin-

alised, others leading quite different lives). We pick upon these ‘pointers’ in the final section, but first weexplore some possible explanations for why ‘‘. . .those

who have adopted the lessons of social theory havecontinued to ignore people labelled ‘mentallyhandicapped’’’ (Laws and Radford, 1998, p. 78).

Explanations for invisibility in research

The first possible explanation for the invisibility ofintellectual disability in geography reflects on the

particular experiences of deinstitutionalisation of intel-lectually disabled people in Western countries. Theprinciple of ‘normalisation’ that drove the deinstitutio-nalisation of the residents of the asylums in the 1970s

and 1980s, deemed that as ‘normal’ a home and lifestyleexperience as possible should be provided. There was amovement to group homes, co-operative housing,

residence with parents and some independent housing.All of these placements were deliberately withinestablished communities. The aim of this process was

to provide a high degree of community integration.Laws and Radford’s (1998) findings are illustrative. Of

1 The concept of ‘normalisation’ was developed primarily by

Wolfensberger and Nirje (1972) and was based on the notions

of assimilation and integration for intellectually disabled people

leaving asylums and entering mainstream society. To quote

Nirje (1985, p. 67): ‘‘The normalisation principle means making

available to all persons with disabilities or other handicaps,

patterns of life and conditions of everyday living which are as

close as possible or indeed the same as regular circumstances

and the ways of life of society’’. As Imrie (1996b) has argued, it

is based on the powerful assumption that the goal of society is

to transform disabled people ‘back’ into a ‘normal’ state in

mainstream society, whatever that may mean.

E. Hall, R. Kearns / Health & Place 7 (2001) 237–246 239

the 57 intellectually disabled people interviewed, 21 livedwith their parents, 15 in a group house and 13 in

independent apartments (mostly as part of a shelteredhousing complex). The other eight were either insupported independent living programmes, boarding

houses or larger institutions. Such people were thusdeinstitutionalised and living in a community (often inparticular, sometimes designated, parts of the city), butremained housed in an institutional setting, albeit

smaller in scale, where they lacked control and choice(Imrie, 1996b; Laws and Radford, 1998). A combinationof factors led to this situation. These factors include:

intellectually disabled people being constructed asincapable of leading an independent life; housing andsocial policy systems under financial and logistical

pressures; and the wishes of disabled people and theircarers, advocates and families (not all necessarilyholding the same views). Similarly to the circumstances

confronting former psychiatric patients, for some peoplethis situation amounted to an ‘asylum without walls’.Any sense of isolation was exacerbated by dominantpublic understandings of intellectually disabled peo-

ple}a mix of patronisation, fear, an unwillingness tounderstand ‘non-standard’ forms of communication,and a strong sense of ‘difference’.2

Thus, building on the analysis of Laws and Radford(1998), many of the more capable people with intellec-tual disability are living and often working in a

community, but they may not necessarily feel part ofthe community. Deinstitutionalisation, whilst bringingintellectually disabled people physically into societyleaves them, in many cases, socially isolated and largely

invisible. Laws and Radford explain this as being, inpart, ‘‘. . . a function of the fact that they are more likelyto receive the sympathies of the public and their families

and are, therefore, likely to receive support that preventsthem from becoming a visible part of the streetpopulation’’ (1998, p. 88). The increasing, though still

limited, presence of physically disabled people on thestreets and in communities, combined with the oftenmore obvious presence of people with mental health

problems has, in part, given the latter group a higherprofile in the public and academic eye. We applaudthis greater presence of disabled people in Westernsocieties, a transformation in large part due to their own

efforts in forcing change. However, those less visible, lessobviously marginalised, in particular intellectually dis-abled people, but others too, are likely to receive less

attention. This is a mixed blessing. Inconspicuous lives

may be regarded as satisfactory to some people involvedin the care of people with intellectual impairment. Yet

for others, a lack of ‘exposure’ in civic life may serve toinhibit public awareness of difference.

One way of shining light on those ‘in the shadows’, as

Laws and Radford have so ably demonstrated, isthrough appropriate research. However, it is arguablethat geographical research approaches to disability havedeveloped in such a way that intellectually disabled

people and their experiences have remained opaque. Oneof the major contributions geography has made to thestudy of disability has been its recognition of the acute

power relations existing within the research process andits active desire to produce a more representative andethical research paradigm. Most crucial has been the

degree and type of involvement of disabled people in theresearch process. A consensus of sorts has been reachedthat disabled people, particularly those in the place or

situation under investigation, should be involved, tovarying degrees, in the design, undertaking and writingup of the research (Gleeson, 1999; Parr, 1998b). Kitchin(1997), in particular, has pushed this notion of

‘participatory action research’ that involves disabledpeople in a positive and enabling process of change. Heargues that, unless this approach is adopted, the

interests of disabled people are not reflected andgeography could unconsciously remain ‘disablist’ in itsresearch practice (Chouinard, 1997; Chouinard and

Grant, 1995).3 There is certainly now a greater aware-ness amongst (mostly able-bodied) geographers of thepitfalls and problems of researching the ‘other’.

That ‘participatory action research’ and the

‘emancipatory’ approach have taken such a hold in thegeography of disability is to be broadly welcomed.Indeed, no one would argue for a return to the

patronising, exploitative and misrepresentative studiesof the past (Abberley, 1991; Oliver, 1990). However, it isincorrect, too, to believe that the emancipatory ap-

proach can be applied equally to all experiences ofimpairment and disability. Participatory action research,as its name suggests, requires two key occurrences: a

group of disabled people who are willing and able toparticipate, and a sense of purpose of what is to beachieved. For many disabled people both criteria arefairly easily satisfied. But for others, such an approach

provides too prescribed a coda (Bury, 1996). For manyintellectually disabled people, educational neglect, socialisolation, parental or carer control and the restriction of

choice as well as intellectual incapacity, could restricttheir ability to play an active role in developing and

2 Parr and Butler (1999, p. 14) argue that mental differences

are understood in Western society as somehow less acceptable

than physical differences. People with mental impairments

‘‘perhaps represent an ‘ultimate other’ (because of a supposed

lack of ‘reason’ constructed as a central characteristic of post-

Enlightenment human being and life)’’.

3 ‘Disablism’ is the dominant set of ideologies and values

which legitimise oppressive practices against disabled people,

purely on the basis that they have a physical and/or mental

impairment. It also assumes that able-bodied is the ‘norm’ and

normal (Imrie, 1996b).


conducting a piece of emancipatory research. Forsimilar reasons, many may have no clear agenda for

change that they wish to achieve through the research.This is not to say that intellectually disabled peopleneither know what they want nor have priorities.

However, because of their often ‘invisible’ position insociety, different research methods need to be employed.At one level, one approach towards greater inclusionmight be to involve key carers in participatory research.

At another level, as we have argued, there is a prior needto (re)claim a place for all disabled Others in research.

Connected to the foregoing observation is our third

possible explanation: confusion over terminology con-cerning intellectually disabled people. In attempting tode-emphasise the medical model of health, a number of

geographers have used the term ‘disabled’ in relation topsychiatric patients. Has this usage served to furtherhide the presence of the intellectually disabled? One of us

used the term ‘chronic mentally disabled’ in his doctoralresearch (Kearns, 1987) and a number of subsequentpublications (e.g. Kearns, 1990). Others have followed.Gleeson et al. (1998), for instance, state that they will

describe the ‘‘geography of mental health care’’, but goonto set up the research question, ‘‘Does Dunedin [inNew Zealand] show a spatial concentration of people

with chronic mental disability and of mental healthservices in particular neighbourhoods?’’ (emphasisadded) (1998, p. 2). Even though some people with

intellectual impairments may have some form of mentalhealth problems and vice versa, and even though someinstitutions have housed members of both groups (seeJoseph and Kearns, 1996), there are clearly different

issues for people experiencing mental illness and thosefor intellectually disabled people. Conflation of intellec-tually disabled people and those people with mental

health problems continues to be an issue in policy,academia and the public arena, leading to problems ofmisunderstanding and misrepresentation, fear and pre-

judice.Within the intellectual disability arena, the debate

over terminology is ongoing. Hughes (1998) charts the

production of categories of intellectual disability in thepowerful Mental Deficiency Act 1913. Its fourcategories}‘idiots’, ‘imbeciles’, ‘feeble-minded persons’and ‘moral imbeciles’}are now completely unaccepta-

ble and inaccurate, but the term ‘mental deficiency’ isstill used. In some policy areas, particularly welfare andeducation, people with intellectual impairments are

increasingly termed as having ‘special needs’ or ‘learningdifficulties’. The concept of learning difficulty arose froma new understanding that ‘mental deficient’ people were

educable, and was part of the ‘normalisation’ philoso-phy of the integration of people into ordinary life, tomake them more independent and to equip them with

various social and practical skills. Critics have pointedout that this approach focussed on individual difference

and lack of ability, which often meant that provision ofservices remained separate from the ‘mainstream’.

‘People with learning difficulties’ is the term preferredby self-advocacy groups of intellectually disabled peoplebecause, in the words of one self-advocate, ‘‘If you put

‘people with learning difficulties’ then they know thatpeople want to learn and to be taught to do things’’(Harris, 1995). Most importantly, as Hughes comments,the changing language of the debate concerning people

with learning difficulties over the decades of thetwentieth century is defined by ‘expert’ knowledges(1998, p. 75).

The term we use}‘intellectual disability’}of coursecontains its own set of problems. The term is based onnotions of relative intelligence, which involve two issues.

First, intelligence is measured (most commonly via the‘Intelligence Quotient’ or IQ test) to judge a person’slevel of disability. Second, decisions are made concern-

ing the nature of intellectual disability, when in factthere is a range of people with different levels ofintellectual disability issues (Marks, 1999). Undoubtedlyunderlying all this discussion is a deep sense of unease

about what it is to be ‘intelligent’, how we are judged byschools, employers and society on our level of intelli-gence and, importantly, how we then judge others.

Fourthly, the very revolution in disability theory anddisability studies in geography that has opened up manyimportant research avenues and placed disabled people

more centrally in research concerns, has perhapsmarginalised many of those with ‘mental differences’.The fundamental understanding of disability in Westernsociety as a matter of biomedical disadvantage has

gradually shifted towards an emerging view that the vastmajority of the problems experienced by disabled peopleare the result of the oppressive and exclusionary

processes and structures of society (Oliver, 1990, 1996).Crow (1996) and others (e.g. French, 1993) have arguedthat while this ‘revolution’ has achieved much personally

and socially for many disabled people (most significantlyin shifting the ‘blame’ from the individual disabledperson to a disabling society) its ‘completeness’ and its

socio-political focus has left many of the experiences ofdisabled people (e.g. those of pain, loss, pleasure,frustration) out of the debate. These absences mirrorgaps in the geographical research process itself (e.g.

Widdowfield, 2000). In response there has been a call, aswell as action, to ‘bring back the body’ into the debate(Pinder, 1995; Meekosha, 1998). These have been

welcome developments as they recognise the complexeveryday worlds of disabled people. However, there is afundamental problem in the way that the social model of

disability has developed. It began with a ‘Statement ofPrinciples’ from an organisation of physically impairedpeople (UPIAS) and has been developed and critiqued

(often through reflection on their bodies) through theactions and writings of primarily physically disabled


people (Oliver, 1990; Barnes, 1991; Finkelstein, 1993;Morris, 1991; Crow, 1996). The problem is that while

the mind and ‘mental difference’ has been largelyexcluded from the social model of disability, the modelhas tended to ‘speak for’ all disabled people. As

Chappell argues,

My worry about the position of learning difficulty

within the social model is that it is almost totallyignored . . . It appears that the best that people withlearning difficulties can expect is an implicit inclusionin any writing about disability. Thus some of the

arguments emanating from within the social modelare assumed to refer to all disabled people, when inreality they do not (1998, pp. 213–214).

Chappell suggests that while there is nothing intrinsi-cally physical about the word ‘impairment’, the way it is

used and the way that ‘learning difficulties’ are describedimplies that the problems of intellectually impairedpeople are largely ‘processural’ (i.e. changeable andimprovable) rather than organic. Notwithstanding the

difficulty of drawing boundaries around various dis-abilities and impairments (and recognising that someintellectually disabled people have physical impair-

ments), the ‘‘body is not the site of the impairment:the impairment may not be immediately apparent andnor may be associated with any physical imperfection’’

(Chappell, 1998, p. 214). Chappell extends her argumentto claim that it is not simply that intellectually disabledpeople are being subsumed within the social model, but,

more crucially, that ‘‘without the inclusion of theexperiences of people with learning difficulties, anyanalysis of the meaning of impairment will be in-complete’’ (1998, p. 216). In other words, the explana-

tory power of the social model is weakened by its lack ofrecognition of intellectual difference.

One reason for this gap is the absence of intellectually

disabled people from positions of influence in theacademic world. Because the development of the socialmodel has depended heavily on the theorisation of

personal experiences by academic disabled people(Oliver, 1990, 1996; Barnes, 1991; Morris, 1991), it wasinevitable that the interests of intellectually disabled

people would be excluded from these theoretical andpolitical developments. Intellectual impairment stillappears to be a powerful barrier to those wishing togain access to higher education and academic employ-

ment. While this observation may seem obvious, it is noless serious for being self-evident and calls into questionthe broader understanding and measurement of mental

ability and access to education.The foregoing observation is closely connected to our

fifth and final explanation for the invisibility of

intellectual disability. For, as our commentary has madeclear, it has been the increasing presence of disabled

people in our society that has focussed attention on theiroppression and marginalisation. This presence has not

simply been a passive one, but in many cases an active,engaged and political presence. Perhaps the clearestexamples of this presence were the many public

demonstrations in support of a Civil Rights Act fordisabled people in Britain in the early 1990s. Thesedemonstrations reflected both the scale of the disabilityissue and the politically active nature of many disabled

people and their organisations (Campbell and Oliver,1996). There has also been a more ‘street level’ everydaypolitical engagement as disabled people demand access

to public space and people with mental health problemshave become part of these spaces (Butler and Bowlby,1997; Parr, 1997). Although some intellectually disabled

people and organisations are involved in the disabilitymovement, the voices of most tend to be heard intranslated form through traditional charitable organisa-

tions}such as the New Zealand Society for theIntellectually Handicapped (IHC}originally Intellec-tually Handicapped Childrens’ Society) and ‘Mencap’ inthe UK. These organisations are neither political in

orientation nor do they form part of the broaderdisability movement. Additionally, as has been noted,most intellectually disabled people do not have the same

presence at street level, a result of their residentialsituation, their organisation of care, as well as short-comings in confidence or competence. We believe that

the community’s willingness to accept intellectuallydisabled people may be more important than anyindividual’s capacity to seek out such acceptance. Interms of the structure-agency dynamic, we suggest that

for those whose intellectual (as well as, perhaps,physical) capabilities are impaired, the preparedness ofa community to accept, as well as affirmatively respond

to, their presence may be the more potent determinantof inclusion.

Making space for the intellectual

Perhaps because of the relatively smaller number ofpeople involved, their lower ‘visibility’ and lack ofpolitical and academic involvement, intellectually dis-

abled people’s geographies will always feature lessprominently than those of physically disabled andmentally ill people. However, in this final section weargue for geographies of disability that include all of

those with mental differences. We also suggest how thissub-field of human geography can be enriched in theprocess.

To build on the important yet still ‘small corpus’(Wolch and Philo, 2000) of work on intellectualdisability, the first task must be to recognise the very

spatial positions and experiences of intellectuallydisabled people in urban (and rural) communities.


Despite their relative invisibility, Laws and Radfordfound that

the temporal dimension of their daily life-paths is notunlike that of most people, at least in the case of

those who are working. . . . Employed [intellectually]handicapped people get up in the morning, go towork, and come home in the evening, a pattern

familiar to most workers (1998, p. 97).

They also share many of the geographies of alldisabled people: exclusion, discrimination, ‘special’

treatment, state and voluntary involvement in theirlives, barriers and opportunities in all areas of life.However, despite these shared features, many intellec-

tually disabled peoples’ experiences are particular totheir ‘classification’. For example there is a greater senseof spatial exclusion through ‘special schools’, ‘special’

transport, sheltered and group housing, and an oftenautomatic push into certain places and types of employ-ment and social contact (Baron et al., 1998). This spatialexclusion helps to produce and re-produce the self-

identity of intellectually disabled people and the under-standing of intellectual disability more broadly (Laws,1994; Sibley, 1995). It is a challenge and opportunity for

geography to recognise the concomitant similarities anddifferences that intellectually disabled people have withbroader disability and all social life and, in doing so, it

will help geography to recognise the complex and diverseexperiences of all disabled people.

To access and engage with this relatively invisible

world of social and physical exclusion, and at times,material deprivation, a distinctive research approachmust be taken. As has already been noted, both‘traditional’ geographical research methods of question-

naires and interviews and the newer formation ofparticipatory/emancipatory research can fail to repre-sent the geographical lives of intellectually disabled

people. The methods involving ethnography, narrativesand storytelling, developed in disability geography by, inparticular, Parr (1998a, b, 2000) and Laws and Radford

(1998), may not produce an agenda for action norprovide a clear expression of causes and effects of theposition of the subjects. What these methods can do,

however, as Laws and Radford explain, is to begin to‘‘listen to the voices of the other’’ (1998, p. 77), bytapping into the knowledge and experiences of people’sengagement with places and spaces}their everyday

geographical lifeworlds (Dyck, 1995). The resultsarguably reveal more than traditional methods would,for ‘‘. . . the feelings expressed in these conversations are

more useful than the compilation of descriptivestatistics’’ (Laws and Radford, 1998, p. 100). Further,their insights also emphasise the necessity of an

ethnographic approach to understand the experiencesof people with disabilities by connecting the personal

and the social-political context (Shakespeare, 1996).This approach could be beneficial in three ways. First, it

could embed the geographies of intellectually disabledpeople in the geography of disability. Second, it mighthighlight the importance of this methodology for all

disability research. Finally, it could recognise the centralrole that place and spatial expression play in identityformation and social marginalisation. In endorsing suchan approach, we must however return to our opening

recognition: that only a subset of intellectually impairedpeople may have the abilities to engage in this way.Others should be no less included, but their inclusion

may need to be filtered through the views of familymembers, other caregivers, or service providers.

In the earliest days of the ‘second wave’ of disability

geography, geographers drew heavily on the socialmodel of disability. As research developed, so thisturned into an exchange and the social model was

enriched as it recognised the importance of the bodyto disabled people’s experiences. Now the socialmodel}and disability geography}must incorporatethe mind fully in its conceptualisation of disability.

Perhaps the moves to create a ‘sociology of impairment’(Hughes and Paterson, 1997; Oliver, 1996) are one wayof ‘making space for (mental) difference’ (Kearns, 1995).

Another way may be to focus the attention of the socialmodel on the whole body through attempting to blur thedistinction between mind and body. Parr and Butler

(1999, p. 12) argue that the ‘geography of disability’does not have to be ‘‘closed around narrow physicaldefinitions of what it is to be impaired and disabled, butrather it can}perhaps should}embrace the multitude

of embodied and behavioural characteristics which areseen as socially stigmatising’’. Furthermore, experiencesof mind and body cannot easily be separated }

although we think within a conceptual framework thatencourages this}particularly if disabled people’s‘everyday geographies’ are considered. What emerges

from this approach is that the ‘dynamics’ that producedisability are fundamentally the same for physically andmentally disabled people (Parr and Butler, 1999).

Wolch and Philo (2000) argue that ‘second wave’mental health geography has had both a ‘critical edge’and a fundamental weakness. For while most of theauthors concerned are politically aware and see social

justice as central, ‘‘there remains a danger that much ofthe new work is disengaged from real-life politics or thepolicy making process’’ (2000, p. 149). Wolch and Philo

explain this disengagement as a combination of thenarrow focus of the small-scale research that dominatesmental health geography and a cynicism amongst

academics of their (lack of) influence. Their call for a‘third wave’ of research, in which a range of methods areemployed to help us ‘‘understand nuanced place-specific

happenings as well as more structurally-determinedspace compressing processes’’ (2000, p. 150), provides


food for thought. For geographical research on intellec-tual disability there are perhaps three ways forward.

Firstly, a recognition of the economic and socialmarginalisation that many intellectually disabled peopleexperience, in other words an increased focus on the

materiality of everyday life. Responding to Wolch andPhilo’s (2000) call, the focus on materiality must gobeyond the local, immediate experience of the individualand be set within, and connected to, the context of

economic and socio-spatial reform and transformation.Kearns and Joseph (2000, p. 159), for instance, haveargued that deinstitutionalisation (in New Zealand, but

it is arguably the case in most Western countries) is‘‘more a specific manifestation of welfare restructuringthan a discrete process within the health care sector’’.

We can link their observations regarding psychiatricpatients to dimensions of community experience forintellectually disabled people such as the legislative

landscape (New Zealand Herald, 1999a) and thephysical design landscape of the urban environmentwhich constrains the movement of people.

The second way forward might be opening up debate

about the powerful assumptions concerning the ‘proper’place of intellectually disabled people in society.‘Normalisation’, along with welfare cost-cutting, has

driven deinstitutionalisation and public as well as policyopinion has legitimated the process. However, theexperience of many deinstitutionalised intellectually

disabled people is of a continued isolation in small-scaleinstitutional contexts in the community. As Imrieargues, ‘‘state policies retain a segregationist ethos inpractice while increasingly espousing the rhetoric of

‘normalisation’ and/or policies for integrating disabledpeople into the mainstream’’ (1996b, p. 57). Much policyresearch interprets the problems of deinstitutionalisation

as just that: problems to be fixed (for example,improving integration through employment), withinthe context of overall success (for example, O’Brien

et al., 1999; New Zealand Herald, 1999b). There is aneed to question the overall process of the deinstitutio-nalisation of intellectually disabled people for at present,

the debate is dominated by the binaries of institution/deinstitutionalisation, isolation/integration and success/failure (Gleeson and Kearns, 2000).

A third way forward is the view that intellectually

disabled people must be a central part of this critique of‘normalisation’ and life in the community. As this paperhas shown, with appropriate research methods the

experiences and hopes of intellectually disabled peoplecan be revealed. The next step is to connect thesenarratives into the policy debate about deinstitutionali-

sation. As Pinfold (2000, p. 210) argues in relation topeople with mental health problems, ‘‘many users arelooking for their own respected middle-ground between

a lifestyle tied to a legacy of disablement and stigma anda personal ambition for ordinary ‘independent’ living in

the future’’. Research can potentially allow thesepositions of coping in the middle ground to develop

and become ‘respectable’. Myers et al. (1998) sharpensthis position of ‘respectability’ into the notion of‘difference’, challenging the drive for similarity through

normalisation with recognition, even celebration, ofdifferent mental abilities and states.

Conclusion

In his presidential address to the Association ofAmerican Geographers, Julian Wolpert (1976) advo-cated ‘opening closed spaces’. His advocacy was

primarily directed at literally opening spaces of separa-tion. Given that in the 1970s, many of the ‘handicapped’he referred to remained institutionalised, his call was

very much a product of its time. A quarter of a centurylater, we have revisited his call for a more inclusivesociety by suggesting the need for opening spaces for

intellectual disability in geographies of health and place.If we take health to involve connections betweenlandscape, identity and well-being (Kearns and Gesler,1998) then geographers might well heed Wolpert’s

warning that ‘social growth requires inclusiveness’. Theintellectual pursuit that characterises our vocation asacademics irrevocably privileges intellectual qualities

(over, say, physical or emotional strengths). Yet, thegrowth in understanding connections between healthand place is surely the richer for including the

intellectually challenged in our research agenda.

Acknowledgements

This paper was prepared with the assistance of a grantfrom The University of Auckland Research Committee.

We are grateful for the support of Michael Hayes andcomments from two anonymous referees.

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