Roy Hanes has been working in the field of disability studies for his entire career. After starting out as a social worker at an Ottawa Rehabilitation Centre, he never looked back.
“It was a job that came up at Royal Ottawa Rehabilitation Centre and I have never thought of going, looking anywhere else. I’ve been involved in the disability community for 32 years,” he said.
The Carleton social work professor was speaking Nov. 20 at a lecture on the inclusion of disabled immigrants and refugees into Canadian society, organized by Carleton’s Dialogue Students’ Association.
While the lecture focused on the inclusion of disabled immigrants and refugees, Hanes also discussed the social construction and definition disability and disability rights across a number of cultures.
Hanes is a founding member of the Canadian Disability Studies Association, and is also a member of the World Disability Union and the Council for Canadians with Disabilities.
Hanes said Canada has made improvements in accessibility in the past several years, but there is still more to be done.
He said that although Carleton is likely the most accessible in Canada, he would like to see the development of a disability studies program nation-wide.
“At some universities in Canada we’re looking at disability as a distinct discipline. I would like to see a disability studies program started here at Carleton,” Hanes said.
Third-year interdisciplinary studies student and disability rights activist Edward Ndopu joined Hanes and added his insights on the social construction of disability by drawing on personal experiences and his own research.
“I’m interested in disability politics, I’m interested in the social meaning attached to our bodies and our experiences in the world is mediated through our bodies,” he said.
The Dialogue Students’ Association hosted the event. It hosts many other lectures throughout the year about current issues. Association president Feyza Celi, a second-year public affairs and policy management student, organized the event and said she learned a lot from the lecture.
“This topic is definitely a hot issue going on in Canada, and I think there [are] many things we need to learn and understand about the issue itself . . . it’s not just an individual problem of the disabled, it’s something that the society should also be encouraged to understand,” she said.
