The myth of transition: contractualizing disability in the sheltered workshop

Abstract

This paper investigates notions of transition and independence, as well as the current circumstances that detain countless disabled people in employment endeavors that not only pay meager wages but also cement a lifelong servitude to the workshop. Sheltered workshops exist on the basis and replication of a structure that incarcerates disabled people within vocational-like settings. This paper begins a discussion of the social contract that occurs between the disabled person in the workshop. The workshop is no longer a place of societal liberation that affords the individual the opportunity to learn vocational skills, but rather it has become an institution that creates its own army of workers that will forever be subjected to a life in the workshop because of their disability status.In the end, I was placed in a sheltered workshop. That thing drove me nuts. All we did all day was put nails in plastic cups. I didn't understand why I was there, it wasn't my choice. After one week, I ran away. (From Maroger, 2002) In the above quote taken from Director Diane Maroger's 2002 French documentary, Forbidden motherhood (Maternité interdite), there is a scene in which one of the main characters, Bertrand, goes to visit his place of employment when he was in high school. His reaction to revisiting the workshop brings about the quote above -a realization that the 'work' he was required to complete was not only useless but also not of his own choosing. He was positioned in the workshop against his will, leaving him with only one choice -flight from the institution that required simulated work activities. Bertrand's reaction to the workshop was not my initial reaction. What took him a week to comprehend, took me years. Coming to realize the system was flawed: my time in the workshopIn my senior year of high school as part of a community service class I took a placement at a local sheltered workshop. My initial reaction was one of amazement that there could be a place that would offer people of differing abilities the opportunity to

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