Disability Justice and Dementia: The Shifting Culture of Dementia in Canada
Join us for the next Gilbrea seminar of the 2022-2023 year by Dr. Katie Aubrecht
February 2nd 2023 at 2:30-3:30pm ET
Co-Hosted with the Department of Health, Aging and Society at McMaster
This seminar was only available LIVE.
Canada is home to new federal and provincial accessibility legislation requiring the prevention and removal of barriers to accessibility for persons with disabilities. Despite jurisdictional differences, federal and provincial accessibility laws share a common commitment to creating barrier-free communities and recognizing the fundamental dignity and human rights of persons with disabilities. Accessibility legislation includes a broad definition of disability inclusive of ‘mental’ or cognitive impairment. Canadian federal and provincial accessibility legislation is guided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). In this presentation I discuss the relevance of the CRPD to participatory dementia research and policy advocacy. Drawing on a review of recent literature, I identify the opportunities and challenges that the CRPD poses for dementia related culture change in Canada and reflect on the role that the CRPD can play in the development of a coalitional politic among disability justice and dementia justice movements.
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Katie Aubrecht, PhD, is Canada Research Chair Tier II Health Equity and Social Justice and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where she supervises students and teaches courses in the areas of mental health and society, disability and culture, race and identity, social theory, and social policy. Aubrecht’s research program, informed by sociology and disability studies, uses participatory and intersectional approaches and qualitative research methods to map and analyze marginalization, mental health and resilience across the life span as social justice issues. This program is supported by the Spatializing Care Lab, a health research and training infrastructure that bridges medical, social, and cultural approaches to care. Additional information is available at www.mystfx.ca/carelab
