New guidance published on interpreting disability histories

New guidance has been published that shares ethical and inclusive ways that museums can research and interpret stories connected to disability and the lives of disabled people.

Everywhere & Nowhere: Guidance for ethically researching and interpreting disability histories has been produced as part of a collaboration between University of Leicester’s Research Centre for Museums and Galleries and the National Trust, with the support of disabled collaborators and experts in disability history.

It offers a framework that museums and heritage organisations can use to “begin to address the absence and erasure of disabled histories, to attend to the widespread unethical interpretation of disability and disabled people’s lives, and to tackle contemporary ableism and discrimination”.

The approach centres the social model of disability approach – which asserts it is society that disables individuals. “As we work to apply the social model of disability in the heritage and cultural sector, we need to undo prejudice and address silences, generate deeper, richer and more empathetic approaches to the lives of disabled people and continually work to understand, convey and respect the real lived experience of the people whose stories we tell,” the guidance explains.

The publication of the guidance follows the Everywhere and Nowhere film, which highlights 10 stories of disability from the National Trust’s collections and sites, including Henry VIII.

Richard Sandell, co-director of the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries at Leicester University, says the need for this guidance was highlighted by media responses to the film.

“Many viewers were prompted to think differently, to recognise the erasure and absence of disabled people in our national story and to begin to understand the harmful stereotypes that tend to underpin any disability stories that are present,” he told Museums Journal. “At the same time however, a number of news reports – even in media that were broadly positive about the project – discussed Everywhere & Nowhere in ways that reflected ableist ideas and assumptions.  

“The guidance we have developed out of this project aims to address the significant under-representation of disabled people's lives (across heritage sites – buildings, landscapes and archives – as well as museum collections) and to build understanding around the potential that cultural organisations hold to reframe disability and to actively tackle ableism within and beyond the cultural sector.”

Putting into practice

Four of the historical figures who feature in the film – Sarah Biffin, Sir Jeffrey Hudson, Nicholas Ward, Geoffrey Winthrop Young – are also used as case studies within the guidance to demonstrate how the ethical framework can be used in practice.

For example, the guidance recommends museums prioritise stories of joy and affirmation, and gives the example of Young, a British climber who experience limb loss during the first world war.

“By honing in on details of Young’s life we were able to find a balance that acknowledged his experience of limb loss was different to many because of his privilege,” the guidance explains.

“Although the focus on this story is celebratory and empowering, we actively worked against common disability stereotypes, such as the ‘heroic achiever’, and ensured that we presented this story in full awareness of the danger of the ‘overcoming adversity’ narrative or an individual transcending their impairment.”

Elsewhere, the guidance uses the case of Sarah Biffin, a Victorian painter who was born with no arms and only vestigial legs, to illustrate its principle that museums should resist “stereotypes rooted in medicalised and deficit thinking and instead presenting complex, full and rounded lives”.

For the film, it was decided to foreground her achievements and talents as an artist, who happened to be disabled, and avoid sensationalising her story.

“At the same time, we recognised the value of acknowledging and celebrating her life as a disabled person to avoid perpetuating the historic erasure of disabled lives or inadvertently reinforcing the sense that disability is a taboo subject,” the guidance says.

“To achieve this, we chose to accompany our full and rounded description of her life and achievements with a self-portrait that showed how she chose to portray herself.”