Análisis e interpretación de los resultados por categorías

Social theorists have increasingly come to recognise that society and life are not constituted only in time, but they are also situated and reproduced in space (Soja 1989; Harvey 1991; Giddens 1991). Space is no more seen as a natural, static and rigid background or container to life and politics, but conceptualised as a politicised, culturally relative and historically specific sphere of multiplicity, interconnection and power (Pugh 2009, 580; Rodman 1992, 641). Everything that we study – including deliberative democracy and deliberative sites – happens somewhere and involves a material dimension. Spatiality on the other hand denotes the organisation of space

101 _{I use the phrase “disability community” as a shorthand for people with disabilities, their allies (both}

as family members, carers and staff of various organisations) and council staff who work in departments relevant to disability work, and are therefore involved in the lives of people with disabilities in Gloucestershire in a professional capacity.

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as a social product (Soja 1989, 79; Massey 1994, 2).102 _{This organisation is not neutral or} insignificant either – it reproduces, stabilizes and maintains social structural differences and hierarchies, arranges patterns of interaction that constitute collective action, and embodies and secures otherwise intangible cultural norms, identities, memories etc. (Gieryn 2000, 473). In this sense space is fundamental in any exercise of power and is seen as an active constitutive component of hegemonic power (Rabinow 1984). In Keith and Pile's words, it “tells you where you are, and it puts you there” (Keith and Pile 1993, 37). Space sustains this difference and hierarchy by routinizing daily rounds in ways that exclude and segregate categories of people, and by embodying in visible and tangible ways the cultural meanings variously ascribed to them.

Constructions of behaviour, appearances, or even people as welcome or unwelcome, accepted or deviant are linked to the space in which they happen – space tells people if they are 'out of place', and the symbolic meanings of landscape indicates how to act or what to avoid. A temple symbolises reverence while a library demands silence. While a same-sex couple holding hands on the streets of the Castro neighbourhood of San Francisco or in London's Soho are welcome or at least invisible, the same couple would feel 'out of place' or unwelcome in many other spaces. Therefore space can play a role that imposes a territorialised normative order to its inhabitants (Gieryn 2000, 480). Space can extend or deny life chances to individuals or groups located in some spots. This is why we often see that certain spaces are socialised by certain homogeneous groups, whose existence in that space regulates and excludes unwelcome visitors (Kitchin 1998, 350).103

102 _{The formulation of spatiality that I employ here follows Soja and Massey’s formulations. I use}

“spatiality” interchangeably with “socially organised space”. A “spatial site” is a site that is socially organised.

103 _{These symbolic meanings are in turn a “function of the values and meanings of a specific time and}

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The organisation of space then is not only a social product, but this organisation always simultaneously rebounds back to shape inhabitants and their social relations (Soja 1989, 57). These inhabitants then ascribe meanings and qualities to the material and social stuff gathered in space that reflect difference and hierarchy – ours or theirs, safe or dangerous, public or private, unfamiliar or known, rich or poor, black or white, new or old, accessible or not (Gieryn 2000, 472; Parkinson 2012, 74). They create meaning - physical, emotional or experiental realities – in space (Rodman 1992, 641). However space does not solely feature in narratives. It is instrumental, a narrative in its own right, one which produces and reproduces meaning in the rhetoric that it promotes (Berdoulay 2015, 135). The arrangement of spaces and the place of both inhabitants and objects in those spaces play a role in the constitution and the transformation of the inhabitants, because place and psychology are deeply connected (Goodley 2014, 10; Imrie 2000, 9).

The forms of exclusion and oppression that people with disabilities face are also played out within space and given context by space (Kitchin 1998, 346). Space is organised and written to perpetuate disabling attitudes and practices, as well as the dominance of able-bodied people. According to Kitchin, space excludes people in two ways. First, space is organised to keep disabled people in their place. People with disabilities are often kept separate from the non-disabled. They exist on the margins of society not only socially, but also spatially. Since the institutions that hid away the disabled or completely separated them from the rest of the society have been closed down, people with disabilities have been relegated to the peripheries of cities and communities. Houses that are set aside for people with disabilities are almost always in less desirable areas of cities where schools are unpopular, crime rates are higher.

The recent proposal to build supported living apartments for vulnerable adults with physical and learning disabilities in Leamington Spa and the ongoing discussions regarding the suitability of the site provides a good example. In 2015 a property development company

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applied to the local council to build sixteen apartments in the place of a fire damaged school building in central Leamington Spa. While the Town Council were in favour of the construction, the proposal received a negative response from the disability community and their allies, a number of local councillors and initially from Warwickshire Police. Bath Place is located between a public car park, two night clubs and a railway line. During the Planning Committee meeting in February 2016, the Council’s Safe Communities manager objected to the proposal on the grounds that it was a poor location to house vulnerable people (Leamington Spa Town Council 2016). In light of the higher than average recorded number of incidents of crime and antisocial behaviour in the site, Warwickshire Police suggested that the location of the site increases the likelihood of people with disabilities becoming vulnerable as targets for crime and antisocial behaviour. Besides incidents of prostitution, Bath Place is known by police as an area where street drinkers and drug users gather. Three councillors objected to the proposal on the same grounds. The plans, however, were approved by the majority of the councillors, and after separate talks with the company, the police have eventually advised that they are satisfied that the development will include a high standard of overall security. The high standard in question included connecting the area to the town centre CCTV system and building a fence around the building. Bath Place provides a very good example of how the organisation of urban space can disadvantage people with disabilities even when the intention is to provide suitable housing. The town’s response to concerns of safety was to surround the building with a fence which would not only keep potential intruders and antisocial behaviour out, but people with disabilities in – as a community of people who will potentially end up living in, but not as part of the wider community.

Second, spaces are social texts that convey to disabled people that they are out of place. I have already reflected on how public spaces shared by the disabled and the non-disabled tend to push the disabled and their needs to the peripheries. Toilets for the disabled are

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usually at the back of buildings and locked. Public services for the disabled – public transport, library services etc. - are almost always provided through specialised and segregated arrangements, which perpetuate disablism by labelling the disabled as different, needing specialised and segregated treatment or facilities. The sign on the wall of the coffee chain shop I visit every day, titled “Facilities for Guests with a Disability” reads:

“Details of the facilities to assist guests with a disability are available from our manager. Please don’t hesitate to ask for any assistance that might help during your visit. If you are unable to queue for assistance please find a table and attract the attention of one of our team. For more information regarding facilities please visit our website.”104

Even special arrangements that are well intended on the surface can thus reproduce and maintain disadvantage and dependence. They can perpetuate the assumption that the normative order which implies able-bodiedness is normal and ideal, while disability is abnormal and a deviation from the ideal. As a result, when people with disabilities attempt to participate in public life at any level – whether it be going shopping or going to participate in a deliberative meeting - they are reminded that they are the exception rather than the norm, the unexpected rather than the expected, and often, the tolerated rather than the welcome.