Dispatches from Disabled Country

Catherine Frazee wants her readers to know that there is far more to disability than most people think or assume. There is much not to like about disability, such as the ways it diminishes status and opportunity, and the ways it requires medical intrusions which, even if lifesaving, are nobody’s idea of a good time. As becomes apparent in this powerful collection of writing, there is much more to the story of disabled life. There is adaptation and activism. There is art, philosophy, and history. There is solidarity, identity, collective struggle, and shared culture. Frazee offers a glimpse into a rich and delicate ecology of disability that warrants not fear and pity, but recognition and respect.

"Catherine Frazee's valuable writings are finally available in one place. Dispatches from Disabled Country adds to our knowledge of the intersectional nature of disability. This long-awaited book is highly readable and truly unique."-- "Michelle Owen, co-editor of Dissonant Disabilities: Women with Chronic Illnesses Explore Their Lives", "Words are Catherine Frazee's close companions, the beloved tools of her craft, the instrument of her analysis, the energy of her activism in the struggle for disability justice ... The power of Dispatches from Disabled Country lies not just in what gets said: the topics selected, the values espoused, the arguments made, and the positions taken. Power lies, as well, in how Catherine says it: the cart and the horse; the unexpected guests; the rattlesnake and the venom; the monsters that matter; the danger and the courage." -- "From the foreword by Kathryn Church and Melanie Panitch"

Catherine Frazee is a professor emerita at Toronto Metropolitan University, where, prior to her retirement in 2010, she served as a professor of distinction and codirector of the Ryerson RBC Foundation Institute for Disability Studies Research and Education. She also acted as the chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission from 1989 to 1992. She has provided expert testimony before Federal and Superior Courts on human rights and disability disadvantage and has contributed actively in Supreme Court of Canada interventions of strategic concern to disabled Canadians, most recently regarding the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Frazee has written extensively on human rights, precarious citizenship, and the activist resistance of disabled people. Dr. Frazee has received honorary degrees from Carleton University, Dalhousie University, the University of New Brunswick, and McMaster University. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2014 for “her advancement of the rights of persons with disabilities, and as an advocate for social justice.”Christine Kelly is an associate professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. Michael Orsini is a full professor in the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies and School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa.Contributors: Eliza Chandler, Harvey Chochinov, Kathryn Church, Laverne Jacobs, Christine Kelly, Michael Orsini, and Melanie Panitch