Warning: Undefined array key 0 in /var/httpd/domains/iidi_in/vp2010/html/Actors/App/Client.php on line 136

Warning: Undefined array key 0 in /var/httpd/domains/iidi_in/vp2010/html/Actors/App/Client.php on line 137

Warning: session_name(): Session name cannot be changed after headers have already been sent in /var/httpd/domains/iidi_in/vp2010/html/Actors/App/Client.php on line 118

Warning: session_start(): Session cannot be started after headers have already been sent in /var/httpd/domains/iidi_in/vp2010/html/Actors/App/Client.php on line 119

Warning: session_regenerate_id(): Session ID cannot be regenerated when there is no active session in /var/httpd/domains/iidi_in/vp2010/html/Actors/App/Client.php on line 120
viewPresenter
December 17 - 19
National Institute of Design
India
Shilpa Das

National Institute of Design
Ahmedabad, India

fe0d831c71a8d28a34d69339679ca849.jpg
Shilpa Das teaches at the National Institute of Design - NID, Ahmedabad, where she is responsible for the Science and Liberal Arts programme. Her areas of interest include art, Indian philosophy and aesthetics, translation theory, contemporary literary, and cultural theory involving semiotics, communication studies, feminist studies, and disability studies. She has extensively published on these subjects in journals and books. At NID she also heads the Publications Department and Faculty of Interdisciplinary Design Studies. She is the Editorial Head of D/Signed - a biennial magazine of design, and The Trellis - a biennial research newsletter, both published by NID, and is member of the Board of Advisors to Pool - a design magazine published from Pune, India. Currently, she is pursuing a Doctoral Degree in the Social Sciences from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences - TISS, Mumbai, India.

www.shilpadas.com (in progress)




Design and the Disabled Body
What Designers Need to Know About Disability Studies

Motivation
Examining different models of disability, we see how information disseminated and available may have a critical bearing on design decisions, processes, actions that are taken, and even social policies that are framed, especially in the Indian context. Indian designers could substantially gain from such insights, but often falter because the concerns of disability are more often than not marginalized or rendered invisible in ableist design thinking. Taking up a few examples, the paper illustrates and discusses how the discourse of Indian design is limited in its attention to disability as it invariably translates into designing the next best crutch or wheelchair. Incorporating in design thinking and practice, the substantial corpus of thought and writing that articulates the unique concerns and experiences of disabled people is a crying need that will greatly enrich both design education and practice and the field of disability studies.

Approach
The scope of study in this paper has been restricted to focus on projects taken up by both faculty members and students at the National Institute of Design - NID, Ahmedabad. I take the liberty to equate the NID experience of design with the Indian experience of design because NID is the premier design institute of India which has produced and continues to produce the largest number of designers in this country. In the last fifty years of its existence, NID has turned out more than 2000 designers in 17 design disciplines. The data is based on about 61 projects undertaken at NID on the subject of disability amounting to at least 30 years if one adds the duration of all these projects involving about 65-70 students and 30 faculty members of NID over a time span of 50 years.

Conclusion
The design academia in this country has already taken cognizance of the need to include universal design but needs to quicken its steps to shape and firm up pedagogy of universal design.

Extensions
The paper begins with laying out the conceptual framework and moves on to analyse through this lens, some design projects undertaken by NID. It talks about the lacunae in design thinking and indeed most other professions, to involve disabled people in a meaningful way.

References
Abberley, P. (1987). The concept of oppression and the development of a social theory of disability. Disability, handicap and society, 2(1), 5-19.

Das, S. (2010). Hope for the invisible women of india: Disability, gender, and the concepts of karma and shakti in the Indian Weltanschauung. In Janet Horrigan and Ed Wiltse (Eds.). Hope against hope: Philosophies, cultures and politics of possibility and doubt. (pp. 129-147). New York and Amsterdam: Rodopi Press.

Dyer, R. (1993). The Matter of Images: Essays on Representations. London: Routledge.

Garland Thomson, R. (1997). Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.

Ghai, A. (2003). (Dis)embodied Form: Issues of Disabled Women. New Delhi: Har Anand Publications.

Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Mitchell, D.T., & Snyder, S.L. (1997). Disability Studies and the Double Bind of Representation. In Mitchell and Snyder(Eds.). The Body and Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability. Ann Abor: University of Michigan Press, 1-31.

Morris, J. (2001). Impairment and Disability: Constructing an Ethics of Care that Promotes Human Rights. Hypatia, Feminism and Disability, Part 1, 16(4), 1-16.

Oliver, M. (1996). Understanding Disability: From Theory to Practice. London: Macmillan.

Oliver, Michael. (2003). Redefining Disability: A Challenge to Research. In John Swain, Vic Finkelstein, Sally French and Mike Oliver, (Eds.), Disabling Barriers and Enabling Environments. London, California and New Delhi: Sage Publications.

Schriempf, A. (2001). (Re)fusing the Amputed Body: An Interactionist Bridge for Feminism and Disability. Hypatia, Feminism and Disability, Part 1, 16(4), 58.

Titchkosky, T. (2000, Spring). Disability Studies: The Old and the New. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 25 (2), 197-224.

Wendell, S. (1996). The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability. New York: Routledge.

WHO. (1980). World Health Organisation or International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps. Geneva: WHO-ICIDH.

Zola, I. (1982). Social and Cultural Disincentives to Independent Living. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. 63, 395.

Back to the conference programme