Gendron wheelchair, BBC A History of the World in 100 Objects
I am a co-principal investigator in the interdisciplinary team “Carleton University’s Disability Research Group“. Its objective is to “raise awareness, as well as questions about societal understandings of disability and technology by creating virtual exhibits and other collaborative, multidisciplinary research outputs that take a participatory approach to telling the histories of activists, users, and innovators who contribute to a more inclusive and accessible transnational Canada.”
In 2013-14, I coordinated the rolling series of papers on Disability Studies, to present work done at Carleton, and support the new minor program in Disability Studies at Carleton.
I also helped supervise the research on technologies of disability in Canada. Dorothy Smith worked on the history of the wheelchair in Canada, with the help of Design engineer Adrian Chan and Social Worker Roy Hanes.
The final website, “A Wheelchair History of Disabilty in Canada” was launched in August 2014. All are invited to write comments.
Here is an article on the wheelchair history project published by Carleton University.
I wrote a short review of the work done by historians of disability and the Canadian Disability Studies Association for the Bulletin of the Canadian Historical Association of May 2013.
In March 2016, my colleagues and I of the Carleton University Disability Research Group posted a preview our upcoming exhibition on Active History last week. We then welcomed two dozen people at Carleton @1125 to discuss ways to make it better.
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- braillewriter from the American Foundation for the Blind
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- The first prototype of Roland Galarneau’s Converto-Braille, a computerized device that could transcribe written text into braille.
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- Galarneau Printer, Model BT-120, CSTM artifact no. 1994.0205.001
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- A braille note-taker
Here is the preview I wrote: “Virtual Histories of Disability and Assistive Devices: An Active History Preview of “Envisioning Technologies” in Collaboration with Carleton University’s Disabilities Research Group“
Here is the account of the workshop: “Virtual Spaces, Contested Histories: A Retrospective of a One-Day Symposium on “Envisioning Technologies”“
The virtual exhibition “Envisioning Technologies: “Historical Insights into Educational Technologies for People who are Blind or Partially Sighted in Canada, 1860 – Present” was launched shortly after. Visit it HERE.
We also created a physical traveling exhibit launched in the Department of History at Carleton University in the Fall of 2016. Se information HERE.
