Dustin Galer | York University (original) (raw)

Papers by Dustin Galer

Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 2014

This article explores the emergence and evolution of sheltered employment in Canada during a peri... more This article explores the emergence and evolution of sheltered employment in Canada during a period in which the discourse of disability and role of rehabilitation became increasingly contested. From the early 1970s to mid-1980s, sheltered workshops were an integral part of an evolving Canadian welfare state that provided employment to people who were unable to compete in an exclusive capitalist labour market due to physical impairments, intellectual disabilities, or mental health issues. As workplaces within a token economy, sheltered work did not reflect true employment relationships with workers earning “symbolic” rather than “real” wages. Though sheltered work was initially conceived as a strictly transitional part of the rehabilitation process, the workshop system was repurposed in the 1960s and 1970s to handle new pressures created by the deinstitutionalization movement. Workshops acquired new controversial meanings due to these changing workforce demographics, attracting increasingly vocal condemnation from disability rights groups. Eventually, critics launched campaigns to undermine public support for sheltered workshops which were painted as obstacles to the pursuit of full participation in society. Sheltered employment was thus situated at the vanguard of changes in the discourse of disability in Canada during this period and reflected emerging debates about the economic rights and opportunities available to people with disabilities in modern Canadian society.

Disability Studies Quarterly, 2012

Many people with disabilities share the mainstream ethos that participation in the competitive wo... more Many people with disabilities share the mainstream ethos that participation in the competitive workforce constitutes a primary feature of their identity. While unpaid work may fulfill the desire to be productive and provide a sense of purpose and contribution, the cultural imperative to achieve personal autonomy partly through material independence situates paid employment at the centre of personal identity formation. While disability activists struggle to carve out an empowered collective identity instilled with rights-based protections, many people with disabilities identify with the liberal individualism upon which participation in the capitalist labour market is largely based. Individuals with disabilities seek not simply to shrug off an identity defined by burden, but to claim an identity marked by self-fulfillment. Within the world of paid work, then, tension and compatibility co-exist regarding the nature and value of identity development for people with disabilities.

in Untold Stories: Disability History in Canada, University of Manitoba Press, (eds.) Roy Hanes & Nancy Hansen (in press), 2015

A central player in a changing labour market, the Canadian labour movement reflected the extent t... more A central player in a changing labour market, the Canadian labour movement reflected the extent to which disability rights penetrated the world of work from the mid-1970s onward. The emergence of disability rights in Canada coincided with unprecedented changes in the organization of work and the transformation of union membership. Among union leaders, these changes facilitated purposeful dialogue about the role of disability rights in the workplace and within union structures. However, as social institutions embedded in local communities, unions reflected an understanding that disability affected the individual rather than being a manifestation of exclusionary sociocultural systems. Inherent divisions in the broader disability community also manifested themselves in unions. Core union practices, such as advocacy on behalf of injured workers, reinforced the medical pathology of disability which undercut declarations in support of disability rights. The business of union work increasingly ran up against a new generation of labour activists championing social justice and the extension of civil rights to traditionally marginalized groups. In an attempt to combine union business with social movement activism, the Canadian labour movement struck a fine balance in its support of medical authority and the social model of disability. What follows is an investigation of the Canadian labour movement’s changing response to disability rights and the ideological dilemmas elicited. We begin with a reflection on the importance of work in the discourse of disability rights.

Labour/Le Travail, 2010

During the period of early capitalism in Ontario, disabled workers were forced to find ways to su... more During the period of early capitalism in Ontario, disabled workers were forced to find ways to survive following an injury. Affordable insurance offered by fraternal societies provided limited protection for many working-class fam-ilies but was not a reliable source of financial support for injured and disabled workers. Even when insurance disability benefits were a factor, many injured workers soon found themselves in a position of financial hardship. Fraternal insurance reflected many of the same barriers facing disabled workers and as a result, represents a microcosm of wider social and institutional treatment of individuals with disabilities during this period.

Systems Enhancement Evaluation Initiative, 2010

The success of Mental Health and Justice programs depends on referrals from a sector that in the... more The success of Mental Health and Justice programs depends on referrals from a sector
that in the past was not allied with health care. All of the programs that participated in
the Matryoshka Project emphasized the importance of establishing relationships within
new sectors such as Justice as well as enhancing already existing mental health
networks. This has been achieved through education, establishing a presence within
the relevant settings including the courts and correctional facilities, adjusting to a
broader mandate and seeking ways to successfully address ongoing challenges.

As part a of comprehensive review of climate change literature, this paper examines the relations... more As part a of comprehensive review of climate change literature, this paper examines the relationship between climate change and jobs. For 25 years, scientists have warned us of climate change and our need to create a sustainable society to mitigate and adapt to it. Though this process will be difficult, the Global Climate Network, an alliance of independent think tanks, estimates that the development and wide use of low-carbon technology will create millions of jobs globally. In Canada, the lack of political leadership on climate change has increased carbon emissions, stimulated an industry of climate denial, missed out on green jobs and clean energy investments. A proactive approach to climate change leads to job creation. Pending an effective political response, it is urgent and necessary to create a movement to “repair the planet” by involving trade unionists, environmental activists, academics, educators and journalists. To the extent that such action “from the bottom up” is effective, it will combat climate change and result in new jobs in a new, sustainable economy.

Book Reviews by Dustin Galer

In twentieth-century Alberta, Canada, “mentally defective” children and adults were victimized by... more In twentieth-century Alberta, Canada, “mentally defective”
children and adults were victimized by the logic
of institutionalized confinement and segregation. Disproportionate
numbers of poor, rural, immigrant, indigenous,
or Métis people labeled with intellectual disabilities
were routinely channeled into the Michener Centre
in Red Deer, a total institution where involuntary sterilization,
forced labor, violence, and abuse were commonplace.
Supported by a body politic condoning eugenics
and the strict separation and control of people with physical
and intellectual disabilities, the provincial education
system regularly supplied the Michener Centre with new
inmates while local businesses and homes in Red Deer
benefited from their unpaid inmate labor. Justified by
policymakers, medical officials, administrators, and community
members as a site of remedial education–a place
of last resort for people considered useless to society–
the center was a place where inmates were instead physically
and emotionally traumatized, having been entirely
stripped of their rights, personal autonomy, and dignity.

H-Disability, Jan 2015

In Accessible Citizenships: Disability, Nation, and the Cultural Politics of Greater Mexico, Juli... more In Accessible Citizenships: Disability, Nation, and the Cultural Politics of Greater Mexico, Julie Avril Minich asks how disability has been used to build, reconfigure, and dismantle real and imagined political communities in the context of an evolving Chicana/o cultural nationalist movement. Breaking new transdisciplinary ground in disability studies and Latin American studies, Minich presents a highly insightful and rigorous study of the ways in which the "ideology of ability" (p. 96) has been repeatedly represented in Chicana/o texts, images, and film. Minich finds that these representations are often deployed within the Chicana/o counternarrative in conjunction with other non-normative and anti-normative discourses in order to challenge the hegemonic body politic. As a result, she suggests that definitions of nationalism are made not just from the defense of ideal forms, but also the propagation of non-normative imagery and rhetoric. Readers also learn of the ways in which these ideologies have been used toward exclusive ends, such as in the policing of national borders and in defense of dominant gender, sexuality, race, and ability norms. Through close reading and detailed analysis, Minich argues that such "corporeal images used to depict national belonging have important consequences for how the rights and obligations of citizenship are distributed" (p. 2).

Disability & Society, 2012

Public policies do not exist in a vacuum; they are living, breathing creatures whose changing res... more Public policies do not exist in a vacuum; they are living, breathing creatures whose changing response to disability continually shapes and reshapes generations of lives. If this is the case, what can we learn from comparing the evolution of public policies with the actual lived experience of disability and impairment? How has life changed for disabled people in Britain since the 1940s? These are the central questions guiding Sonali Shah and Mark Priestley in Disability and Social Change: Private Lives and Public Policies. Like any good historical study, the answer appears to be "It's complicated."

Disability & Society, 2013

What was it like to be physically disabled in the Middle Ages? Some archetypes immediately spring... more What was it like to be physically disabled in the Middle Ages? Some archetypes immediately spring to mind: the blind beggar rattling a tin cup while shouting “Alms for the poor!”; the shrouded leprous figure shuffling through the streets; the peg-legged sailor reminiscing about his days on the sea; the hunchback; the mute; and so on. In A Social History of Disability in the Middle Ages: Cultural Considerations of Physical Impairment, Irina Metzler interrogates the social institutions and cultural attitudes surrounding these and other characters, revealing the extent to which disability was ubiquitous in medieval life and consequently deeply engrained in collective mentalities and social attitudes.

The Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 2013

Is it possible we are all "freaks" living in a state of self-deluded normalcy? Do we harbour hidd... more Is it possible we are all "freaks" living in a state of self-deluded normalcy? Do we harbour hidden sources of anxiety, prejudice, revulsion, desire, passion, jealousy and appetite? Do we externalize these emotions by projecting them onto others who fail to fit arbitrary and changing boundaries of normativity? Is this process only complete when we can confirm, by consulting representations of "freaks" in popular culture, that "we" are definitely not "them"? Are "freaks," then, not just representations of the repressed elements of the so-called normal crowd, conveniently "contained" in order to remove any obvious threat to vulnerable normative standards? These are some of the larger questions driving Transgressive Bodies by Niall Richardson who tells us that transgressive bodies are created, contained, and (s)exploited in representations of popular culture.

Social History/Histoire Sociale, 2014

How did Canadian business leaders handle major political changes in the period from the declarati... more How did Canadian business leaders handle major political changes in the period from the declaration of the First World War to the conclusion of the Second World War? How did their responses reflect fundamental differences dividing old and new political landscapes? In Dominion of Capital, Don Nerbas relates a tale of two political economies—one, rooted in longstanding National Policy protection of manufacturing entrepreneurs; and the other, welcoming the state’s engineering of continental economic integration. Nerbas argues that defenders of the old political economy, largely railway magnates based in Montreal, were unable to halt the forces of change that threatened to overturn the state’s relationship with private capital. He finds that this national bourgeoisie was in a state of “crisis” during this period, the result of being “too rigid and too classically liberal to respond effectively to the emerging political challenges created by the onset of the Depression."

Labour/Le Travail, 2014

Labour historians may be forgiven for overlooking Restoring the Spirit: The Beginnings of Occupat... more Labour historians may be forgiven for overlooking Restoring the Spirit: The Beginnings of Occupational Therapy in Canada, 1890-1930 when it was first released. A sympathetic portrayal of an emerging therapeutic discipline as told by one of its practitioners and classified under medical history seems an unlikely place to encounter revealing lessons about Canadian labour history. Yet, Judith Friedland has written a fascinating and original story of working women with aspirations of a professional identity supporting the efforts of predominantly working-age men with physical and mental health issues to access the labour market.

Left History, 2011

Seth Rockman provides new clarity and validity to the vision that modern industrial capitalism wa... more Seth Rockman provides new clarity and validity to the vision that modern industrial capitalism was built on the backs of poor, downtrodden, and largely anonymous masses. Scraping By is about the working poor in early America and the various ways in which impoverished families and individuals struggled to survive during the early Nineteenth century when urbanization and industrialization began to transform the social and economic landscape.