[Linganth] disability & accessibility at the AAAs

[E. Mara Green]

Please see below for an important survey on accessibility at the AAAs. I
hope you will consider taking a moment to fill it out, and please feel free
to forward to other lists. Thank you!

All the best,
Mara


Dear colleagues:

In recent years, the Conference Accessibility Committee of the Disability
Research Interest Group (DRIG), an interest group of the Society for
Medical Anthropology, has been working hard to make the AAA annual meeting,
and the smaller section conferences, more accessible for our colleagues and
students. Now, we are asking you to take a few minutes to complete a survey
<https://goo.gl/forms/GUJzEtIWp0Gsn3JJ3>about your conference experience.

Many disabilities are not always obvious, and there is often a sense of
stigma in our discipline and in society at large when it comes to
disclosing disability status and/or asking for access. Many anthropologists
have impairments that they are very adept at minimizing or keeping to
themselves. For instance, we might keep quiet about how age-related hearing
loss affects our participation in a microphone-less conference roundtable;
about how an injury or chronic pain affect moving about the large
conference hotels; or, we might be so used to operating with colorblindness
or another vision condition that can make viewing powerpoints difficult.

In August, the DRIG’s conference access committee will conduct a virtual
meeting with the AAA business office to discuss conference accessibility.
We will discuss both the logistics of conference organization and
accommodations, and we will request the creation of a committee within the
general executive structure devoted to disability inclusion (there is
currently no permanent AAA-wide disability access organization or
appointee). This is a request we have previously made and it was not
granted. The DRIG, as an interest group of the Society for Medical
Anthropology, considers accessibility advocacy essential to the kind of AAA
community that we hope for but, we are not institutionally located in an
appropriate place. Our goal for the access committee, what’s more, is to
have a wide range of stakeholders involved so that disability access
becomes a concern across the sections and within the general membership.

The survey is open to all those who consider themselves anthropologists by
profession, regardless of membership in the SMA or the AAA.

TAKE ME TO THE SURVEY <https://goo.gl/forms/iaBOeeY1YeCVV7Mh2>

Information about the outcome of the meeting will be shared via the DRIG
listserv and at the 2018 business meeting (open to all) during the regular
program of the AAA in San Jose.

Thank you for taking the time to record your responses.

Signed,
Cassandra Hartblay, Christine Sargent, and Tyler Zoanni of the DRIG CAC




-- 
E. Mara Green
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
Barnard College, Columbia University
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