The discourse about Café GÆS

Abstract

Employment opportunities in the open labour market for people with intellectual disabilities have long been of a limited nature and often the only jobs on offer have been low-paid, with little opportunity for pay rise or promotion. It was, therefore, a watershed in labour market participation by people with intellectual disabilities when Café GÆS was opened in the premises of Tjarnarbíó in June 2013. For the first time in Iceland, people with intellectual disabilities established a company and took charge of all management as well as the front-of-the-house positions. Five graduates from a vocational diploma program for people with intellectual disabilities at the University of Iceland launched Café GÆS. One of the students came up with the idea to open a café run by disabled people. She wanted to see some drastic changes in job opportunities for disabled people and create a more accepting community in the labor market. The name GÆS means “goose” in Icelandic but is also acronym for “get, ætla, skal” (I can, I will, and I shall). The ideology of the project is derived from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. According to the convention, disabled people have the right to participate in society on an equal basis with others and are entitled to live in a community without discrimination. They also have equal rights to be employed and earn a living and to work in a disability friendly environment, as well as starting their own business with relevant support and backing.This research reports on findings from an ethnographic study carried out in 2012 - 2014. The research falls within the field of disability studies whose academic approach critiques medical definitions of disability, emphasising, instead, the interplay of impairments and environment and the importance of human rights for disabled people. The aim of the research was to identify and analyse the discourse on Café GÆS, which received significant coverage in news and online media. A particular emphasis was placed on the way people’s perspectives of intellectual disability were ref lected in the discourse. In addition, a special effort was made to explore how the discourse shaped the five founding individuals’ life experiences; for this purpose, participant observations were carried out in the café and both individual and focus group interviews were conducted with them. The data was analysed by means of discourse analysis and thematic analysis. The results of the research suggest that the discourse on GÆS in some ways ref lects the general social discourse on people with intellectual disabilities, particularly with respect to historical views which mirror a devaluation, placing them in the roles of kids, sources of joy and amusement, superheroes and geniuses, even with reference to everyday activities. In contradiction to those perspectives there were also indications that the GÆS group has altered people’s views by challenging the above-mentioned stereotypes and reversing accepted notions relating to people with intellectual disabilities. Thus, one might conclude that GÆS has contributed to a more open discourse on the skills and competences of people with intellectual disabilities. The findings also indicate that the discourse on GÆS was characterised by positive attitudes towards the group which established the café. This, among other things, was manifested in considerable media interest and goodwill towards the café. But in contrast to the conclusions outlined above, the discourse was also coloured by ableism and stereotypes of people with disabilities, attitudes which are, for example, demonstrated by regarding them as eternal children who cannot assume responsibilities. Ableism presumes that disability is a certain divergence from the norm and that people who are not disabled should always be socially classified over and above those with disabilities. There is some likelihood, therefore, that notions of ableism have led to the expression of doubts regarding their ability to run a café and that this later became a weighty reason for the operation  being wound up.