‘Do You Think I’m Stupid?’: Urban Encounters between People with and without Intellectual Disability

Abstract

Being amongst strangers is a definitive aspect of life in the modern city. To understand social inclusion in cities, it is necessary to consider not only the strength and extent of social networks of familiarity, but also the role of interactions with strangers in the public realm. People with intellectual disability are considered one of the most marginalised groups in society and the study applies the concept of encounter to offer a new perspective on their inclusion/exclusion, informed by contemporary urban theory rather than more nostalgic notions of community. The paper discusses encounters between people with and without intellectual disability in one suburb in Melbourne, Australia. The study is based, primarily, on field observations in a variety of settings in the public realm. Through analysis of these data, a typology of urban encounters is proposed that involves people with and without intellectual disability.

Urban encounters limited: The importance of built-in boundaries in contacts between people with intellectual or psychiatric disabilities and their neighbours

“…Moreover, such is not life in a modern urban environment, as Fincher and Iveson (2008) argued. Contacts between different groups in an urban environment can lead to moments of conviviality, where people briefly acknowledge each other's existence and feel recognised, as Wiesel, Bigby and Carling-Jenkins (2013) have shown.…”

“…People with a psychiatric disability particularly, who were included in our study and not in the study by Wiesel, Bigby and Carling-Jenkins (2013), meet other people when they walk their dogs. Mrs Tromp, a neighbour without a disability, relates the contact she has with people with disabilities at the dog walking areas:…”

“…In contrast to the 'distinct social places' described by Wiesel, Bigby and Carling-Jenkins (2013), those we studied were designed to enable encounters between people with and without disabilities. The four projects showed us the importance of boundaries in contacts.…”

A Computational Method based on Radio Frequency Technologies for the Analysis of Accessibility of Disabled People in Sustainable Cities

“…The habitability of cities has been seriously damaged by this phenomenon along with the quality of life of all citizens, regardless of their limitations. Therefore, society has a major challenge: learning to live in a complex society, which involves learning to recognize, treat, and value the diversity of its individuals [48,49].…”

Identifying conceptualizations and theories of change embedded in interventions to facilitate community participation for people with intellectual disability: A scoping review

“…More recently, researchers have begun to disrupt the binary between community presence and participation using ideas about encounter and the diverse and fluid social networks that characterize modern cities (Bigby & Wiesel, 2011Bredewold, Tonkens, & Trappenburg, 2016;Laurier & Philo, 2006;Wiesel, Bigby, & Carling Jenkins, 2013). Convivial encounters are a particular type of encounter-social interactions that are neither free mingling in public places (presence) nor based on long-term relationships (participation as understood by O'Brien & Lyle, 1987) but where there is a shared identity or activity and a sense of pleasantness or warmth (Fincher & Iveson, 2008).…”