Voices from a Buried Past: Recovering Dis/ability Histories Through the Woodlands Memorial Garden by Patricia Feindel M.A. (Anthropology), Simon Fraser University, 2008 B.A., Simon Fraser University, 1995 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences © Patricia Feindel, 2019 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Fall 2019 Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation. Approval Name: Patricia Feindel Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology) Title: Voices from a Buried Past: Recovering Dis/ability Histories Through the Woodlands Memorial Garden Examining Committee: Chair: Simone Rapisarda Assistant Professor School for the Contemporary Arts Dara Culhane Senior Supervisor Professor Robert Menzies Supervisor Professor Emeritus Tim Stainton Supervisor Professor School of Social Work University of British Columbia Kirsten McAllister Internal Examiner Associate Professor School of Communication Pilar Riaño-Alcalá External Examiner Professor Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice University of British Columbia Date Defended/Approved: October 22, 2019 ii Ethics Statement iii Abstract In 2007, the Woodlands Memorial Garden (WMG) was installed in New Westminster, British Columbia, on the site of a long-forgotten cemetery, active between 1920 and 1958, for people diagnosed as mentally “unfit” who were institutionalized at the Public Hospital for the Insane and/or at Essondale Hospital for the Mind (later known as Woodlands and Riverview). Unique in Canada, the WMG recognizes 3200 individuals whose burial places were erased by the provincial government’s removal of gravestones from the Woodlands cemetery in 1976 to transform the site into a “park.” The 2007 installation of a public memorial created not just a material, geographic space for collective recognition and remembrance, but a symbolic, discursive space that prompted individuals to enquire about relatives buried at the site and to explore suppressed family histories related to the history of dis/ability and ableism in BC. Interpreting the WMG as a hybrid counter-memorial, I conducted a collaborative ethnographic study with relatives of people buried at the Woodlands cemetery, engaging in and tracking their research of “lost” family members, inviting responses to the WMG, and co-creating stories, while examining the entanglements between personal, familial, and public remembrance and forgetting. Emerging participant stories addressed the affective, ethical, and sociopolitical dimensions of researching a stigmatized and suppressed family past, while presenting a range of creative strategies for reinstating and including institutionalized relatives in family narratives and the public record. Through storytelling, participants extended the meaning of family advocacy by “rewriting kinship” (Rapp & Ginsberg 2001) across generations of the living and the dead: intervening in family silences, addressing historical erasure, and challenging persistent ableist exclusions in contemporary society. This study offers insights into collaborative ethnographic practice and demonstrates how anthropology can contribute valuable knowledge to disability studies. It contributes to an under-explored area of disability studies – the advocacy and caring role of families in the lives of people with dis/abilities, and their social and political potential. It highlights intersections between colonialism and ableism in dis/ability history and expands historical memory work and commemorative studies by drawing attention to ableism and dis/ability as social justice issues. iv Keywords: collaborative ethnography; commemoration and memorials; storytelling; intergenerational family advocacy; disability studies; institutionalization v Dedication To the memory of my parents, Faith Lyman Feindel, RN, 1920-2016, and William H. Feindel, MDCM, 1918-2014, whose love, support, and keen interest made this study possible. vi Acknowledgements First and foremost, I am grateful beyond words to the participants in this research who agreed to share their stories, their time, and often their homes with me. They ignited and fed the fire that kept this study alive. I am forever indebted to my Senior Supervisor, Dr. Dara Culhane, for steadfast guidance, support, advocacy, and humour during more years of graduate study than either of us ever anticipated; and to my PhD Supervisory Committee members Dr. Robert Menzies and Dr. Tim Stainton for their guidance, encouragement, and extensive knowledge. I am also indebted and grateful to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, where numerous faculty members have extended their enthusiastic support for my work. I gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance provided by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship (2011-13), Simon Fraser University Graduate Fellowships, the Community Trust Endowment Fund Doctoral Graduate Fellowship in Humanities, and the SFU President’s PhD Research Stipend. Without this financial support, I would not have been able to complete my studies. I also extend my gratitude to graduate student colleagues who encouraged and assisted me at various stages: Lesley Cerny, Rima Noureddine, Ayaka Yoshimizu, Emma Kivisild, Sylvia Parusel, and Mary Morgan. I am particularly indebted to readers who offered feedback on chapters that helped sharpen and clarify my writing: Penny Goldsmith, Sylvia Parusel, Mary Morgan, and Katherine Doyle. For ongoing support and helping me maintain some semblance of life balance, I am eternally grateful to my circle of dear friends and family beyond academia, my book club (East Side Story), and my choir (Solidarity Notes). Their love, humour, home cooking, engaging discussions, and activist singing have nourished me in countless ways. I thank my siblings, and particularly, my brothers Chris and Michael, whose generosity, wisdom, and playfulness have been enormously comforting during the years of research which also, sadly, were the last for our vibrant parents. vii Finally, I respectfully acknowledge that this research was conducted on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam, Kwikwetlam, Qayqayt, and Saanich First Nations. viii Table of Contents Approval ............................................................................................................................. ii Ethics Statement................................................................................................................. iii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Dedication .......................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... vii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... ix List of Figures .................................................................................................................. xiii List of Acronyms and Names .......................................................................................... xiv Chapter 1. Prologue – Setting the Stage....................................................................... 1 1.1. A geographic starting place ...................................................................................... 2 1.2. The search ................................................................................................................. 4 1.3. What happened here? ................................................................................................ 8 1.4. Community reaction - 1998 .................................................................................... 12 1.5. Responses to the memorial garden project – a research project emerges ............... 18 Chapter 2. Introduction to the study and its context ................................................ 21 2.1. The research study .................................................................................................. 21 2.2. The Woodlands Memorial Garden ......................................................................... 22 2.3. Commemoration practices ...................................................................................... 24 2.3.1. Cemeteries ...................................................................................................... 24 2.3.2. Monuments and counter-memorials ............................................................... 25 2.3.3. Public memory and sites of conscience .......................................................... 28 2.4. Critical disability studies ........................................................................................ 30 2.4.1. Disability Terminology................................................................................... 34 2.4.2. Issues arising from gaps in disability studies ................................................. 36 2.4.3. Anthropology and dis/ability studies .............................................................. 39 2.5. Historical and political contexts of this study ........................................................