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By Dr. Elaine Cagulada, Department of Social Justice Education, OISE of the University of Toronto.

Read more about Disability Matters ∞ Ways of Perceiving: International Conversations.

The morning began – and not without a stumble.

In the building that houses the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), conference volunteers and organizers found the building unprepared for the arrival of a disability studies-oriented day-long event. A security officer trusted and employed by the university was soon corralled into helping our tight-knit group of students and staff start the day.

Standing in front of the seminar room where most of the day’s conference presentations were meant to be taking place, we requested that the room’s locked door be unlocked. 

“Where is your paperwork suggesting that you booked these rooms?,” demanded the security officer. 

An air of panic set in quickly among the volunteers.

“I work here,” I explained. “We have been planning this event for —”

The uniform barged in with a steely glare. “There is nothing indicating as much on our online system. I can't unlock this door for you.”

Some of the volunteers chose that moment to attend to other matters of the day, while some of us remained, setting out to reason with the officer.

Just then, a long-time employee of the department arrived for her workday. Once notified of our need to unlock the door, she was more than amenable to helping us get the required rooms unlocked.

In the doorway of her office, the officer listened to her speak without interruption. Soon, he became agreeable. He would unlock any door as we wanted. Stumble temporarily averted.

***

In Dr. Rod Michalko’s afternoon keynote that day, he prompted us to reflect on the importance of facing what lies in the way of our listening. Often, we are quick to maneuver around, jump over, and crawl under that which is in our way, stumbling on the thing-in-the-way only to quickly recover and in our recovery, move away from all involved in our stumbling.

The trouble, however, in attempting to move away from that which is in-the-way lies in missing how moving away from the thing in our way compromises our way.

Our way is a sensitive creature; we forget our way and surely enough, it will let alienation take its course. Disability as node, lifeline, pulse of inter-being interrupts the estranging hold of institutional rule and order, pressing bureaucratic doings to pour themselves from their forgetfulness. Disability reminds bureaucracy of itself. Often unexpected, disability may present as the interrupter of routine interruption. Disability matters everywhere and especially here: in facing institutional ways of perceiving that remain beholden to the comfort of order and unbending in their forceful push toward correctness.

***

This presents a most concerning stumble to which we turned toward on May 30, 2025. 

On the topic of working in the university, the morning sessions had much to say. The world, as we are expected to commonly experience it, does not allow us, disabled people, to nurture our wondering. The academic university remains a significant aspect of this world. Traveling into our formative role within an institutional imaginary becomes difficult to do as reflexivity is made to appear convincingly unimportant. The morning offered much on which to contemplate regarding our primordial fusion to the injustices that we perceive.

The import of contemplation as practice carried us into the afternoon. There is our interrelatedness and also, what we do with the meaning of being inter-related. How we choose to exist with our stories greatly affects how we bear the weight and intensity of what it means to be embodied and enfolded in a lifeworld that permits genocide and destruction.

***

Disability Matters ∞ Ways of Perceiving – the day’s lessons – lives yet. All around us are locked doors. There are the locked doors of buildings; there are the locked doors of what we think we know, without question. All locks we’ve a part in locking.

And still, reflections show that Disability Matters ∞ Ways of Perceiving breathes us into the oceanic consciousness of our infinitude. If we allow instrumental thinking to fall away, perhaps we realize that disability holds more vibrancy and wisdom than is often implied by the monochromatic droning on of problem, loss, deficit, and inclusion. A careful practice of listening, of feeling how disability matters differently, and of dedicating time and space to the craft of noticing, perhaps even egoless noticing — these and more — might unlock another way together, giving our stumblings more than recovery to stumble into.