Re-presenting Disability Discussion Questions: #17-19

Reading #17 is about the struggle to preserve both the physical location and the legacy of the Losheng Sanatorium in Taiwan, which was a segregated residential and medical facility for people with Leprosy, now called Hansen’s disease. People infected with leprosy were removed from society and forced to live in this and similar institutions before a successful treatment was discovered. A very heavy stigma has always been attached to leprosy, and even after patients were treated and allowed to return to their homes and families, manyb opted to continue to live at the sanatorium because they had developed a strong familial relationship and support group with other patients. Added to that is the fact that some of them had been completely isolated from society and had no way of successfully rejoining it. When the government gave notice that the sanatorium would be leveled for transit development, a grass roots campaign exploded into a major issue of saving that place and preserving the story of the people who lived there. The site was eventually designated an historic landmark, which bought some time for students to work with the Losheng patients to establish a museum honoring them. The museum incorporates the voices of the patients in delivering their history to visitors, and patients also interact on-site with people to connect their past to the history of Taiwan. At the time this book went to press, there were plans for the museum to be moved and re-organized to highlight Taiwan medical history. How do you think this change
will affect the Losheng patients’ authority as stakeholders?

News article with more background information:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/09/18/2003513573/1

Reading #18 is about the Norwegian Museum of Deaf History and Culture. The theme of this chapter is inclusion—whom to included in exhibits as part of Deaf Culture and how to include hearing people as part of the target audience. Deaf Culture is not just centered around people who can’t hear, and hearing loss doesn’t automatically make you part of the Deaf community. The use of sign language is the connecting factor. Anyone who uses sign language to communicate can be considered part of Deaf Culture. To create a museum that is inclusive of hearing visitors, the choice was made to focus on Deaf Culture and its relationship to mainstream culture, in order to challenge prejudice, in general, as well as to spotlight controversial causes related to deafness. Should museums stick to what the author calls the ‘neutral truth’ and report historical information, as has been a topic in previous chapters, should museums take the risk of promoting social change?

Reading #19 discusses how museum professionals and disability scholars can mutually benefit from collaborative efforts to explore the nature and history of disability.
Disability scholars have much more knowledge of topics related to disability, but museums have the ‘stuff’ related to disability. In what ways can they work together to deliver their combined experience to the public via museum exhibition?

The author, Katherine Ott, is a museum professional specializing in disability and medical history. The following links refer to a past exhibition on disability, which was curated by her.
http://www.adaaccessnow.org/struggle.htm
http://americanhistory.si.edu/disabilityrights/exhibit_menu.html