Rupturing Concepts of Disability and Inclusion

PART TWO: CONFIGURING THE WEAVE OF THE
FRAGMENTS OF INCLUSION
The quiltmaker can approach a project in two ways. One way is to be committed or
attracted to a particular master design or meta-narrative, and then to find the
appropriate fabrics to enhance and serve the design’s purpose. Therefore, the
design, as a chosen preference of the maker, is the dictating force of the textual
formation, which creatively constructs the texts to defend the principles within the
design. The other way is to select fragments of fabrics for their inherent value,
worth and symbolic representation, and to then use a design that captures and
makes full significance of the fragments’ contextual importance.
This research adopts both approaches, but gives significant attention to the latter
approach to construct a quilt which reflects a complex conceptualisation of the
ethical significance of inclusion for people with intellectual disability. I contend
that the fragments, which will constitute three apparent socio-ethical fabrics of
inclusion – Profound Exclusion, Technical Inclusion, and Legislative Inclusion –
are configured by particular threads. I claim, then, that these are fragments of
ethical melange, made of fabrics configured by the warps of theories, definitions,
assumptions and understandings of disability, interlaced with the wefts of values,
beliefs and perceptual framings of social practices.
However, I also assert that the foundational ethical significance cannot be
constructed and situated outside of the texture like an overlaid pattern. It is present
within the weave of diverse strands and mingled colours. As well, the ethical
significance is contained within intentional borders presenting as Selvedges of
Definition, which, I have asserted, are constructed from matrices of patriarchal
philosophy and theology. Therefore, it is in the holes of the weave that ethical
significance is present, yet calendered, that is, influencing, yet concealed. This
research contends that the configuration of the weave, which includes the holes
between the threads, propones and supports expressions of an Ethic of Normalcy
and an Ethic of Anomaly.
Part Two outlines meaningful components which constitute three fragments
of the fabrics of inclusion. Chapter Three highlights one set of ‘Threads of
Configuration’, by exploring the warps of theories, definitions, assumptions and
understandings of disability. Chapter Four highlights another set of threads by
exploring the wefts of values, beliefs and perceptual framings of social practices of
disability services with which the warps are interlaced. Chapter Five, ‘Wiping Away
The Calendering For Ethical Understanding’ explores the constructions of the
Selvedges of Definition which bind an Ethic of Normalcy and an Ethic of Anomaly.
Figure Three diagrammatically outlines the weave of the fragments of the fabrics
of inclusion.
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