The Death Café, led by Esther Ignagni, Associate Professor, Kim Collins, Research Associate, and Eliza Chandler, Assistant Professor, who all work for the School of Disability studies, was an experience I was not sure I was ready for. Confronting and conversing about death was something I was not excited about. However, it was enlightening to learn how death is represented in mainstream media and how death means different things to different people.
When talking in our independent groups, it was interesting to hear each other’s cultural practices and personal opinions about death. We discussed what it means to us, what we think happens after death, and the representation of death in media. Some questions were difficult, while others not so much. Talking about death openly in an environment like this almost felt wrong, abnormal, and uncomfortable. Discussing death in an open and honest way, listening to each other and seeing how it affects other culture groups helps understand what death really means to everybody.
Eliza Chandler made it very clear that they did not start the idea of a Death Café, but that they strongly believed that discussing it openly, especially with integrating the topic of people with disabilities, was necessary to talk about to further promote equal rights and quality of life for all. As Eliza Chandler mentioned in her article, “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than a different one, suggesting that it is easier to imagine the end of a life than to imagine a life with disability” (Chandler 2).
Eliza Chandler discussed the negative implications of “the unliveable life.” How people with disabilities are marked with a containment and should be eliminated, left to die, or assisted to die. She goes on to talk about how disabilities are seen as undesirable, or unliveable; how they threaten the viability of the rest of the world and how people with disabilities are tolerated, not embraced (Chandler 11).
It is obvious to see that there are a lot of things terribly wrong with this course of thinking. However, the discourse in mainstream media does not give a voice to those who struggle with disabilities. Discussing death openly and discussing cultural death around those with disabilities is creating a counter-discourse, proving that there are strong negative associations with people who are disabled. Aa society, it is necessary that we change the way we think when discussing those with disabilities and the way we treat them.
Individuals like Eliza Chandler, Esther Ignagni, and Kim Collins, are attempting to create a counter-discourse to disrupt regular thinking and create change; avoiding the mainstream media and the attitude that it creates. By openly talking about death, the culture around those with disabilities, and how everyone sees death and afterlife differently, we can all better understand how we need to change our attitude towards death, especially with those who struggle with disabilities. As a society, we need to, “Prize physical and mental difference as a significant value in itself” (Chandler 1).
Works Cited:
Chandler, Eliza. “Strange Beauty: Aesthetic Possibilities for Desiring Disability into the
Future.” Date Accessed: 7 March 2018.