With the New Year upon me and the light returning to the northern hemisphere, I’ve embarked on two new projects during the past few months:
1. a project which employs the phenomenological approaches I used in my MUPS research and applies them to the problem of the under and unemployment of persons with disabilities in liberal democracies. It is well known that despite the renovation of constitutions, statutes and regulations, the rate of employment among adults with disabilities has remained unchanged. This project does not want to revisit this ongoing failure (e.g., 93% of ADA employment challenges for accommodation side with the defending employers) but rather seeks to discover what conditions actually assist with the hiring and retention of these individuals. I will interview employees with disabilities and employers who hire and oversee them to unearth what makes it possible to have disabled adults in the workplace. The outliers’ personal experience will provide the material for gleaning “best practices” in encouraging the participation of disabled adults in the workforce. As an interdisciplinary scholar it is apparent that the legal reforms and the invocation of formal human rights are not enough, we need to promote the appropriate conditions which allow adults with disabilities to fully participate in the workforces and economies of their countries. This project will interview employed individuals with disabilities and their employers in Canada, the US, the UK, France and Belgium.
2. a book length manuscript which examines the genetic, social and psychological origins of disease and kinship behaviour in one family over several generations. The family has connections to the “Quebec Founder Population,” which has recently been identified in epidemiological research. This exciting piece is a collage of interviews, first persona and second person narratives, visual images, archival sources and, medical, social science and scientific research.
If you’re interested in either of these efforts and or my work in the area of MUPS and patent advocacy and human rights for the vulnerable, please feel free to contact me.
Best wishes for 2018 – may it go well . . . .