Enhancing Historic European Environments: An Interview with Patrick Devlieger
By Laura Hershey

As part of the 2003 International Year of Persons with Disabilities, a group of Belgian advocates are organizing a conference on Visually Impaired Persons in the Context of the Historic European City. The conference, scheduled to take place November 6 through 8 in Leuven, Belgium, is expected to draw 200 to 300 attendees from around the world, including architects, city planners, policymakers and people with disabilities. Professor Patrick Devlieger of the University of Leuven's Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, one of the conference's main organizers, spoke with DisabilityWorld in June, at the Society for Disability Studies annual meeting in Bethesda, Maryland.

Disability World: The title of your conference is Visually Impaired Persons in the Context of the Historic European City. Can you elaborate on that theme?

Devlieger: Sure. The central theme of the European Year is accessibility. That's the focus word, accessibility -- not just physical accessibility, but also in terms of information and attitude. It's as broad as it can be. We have historic cities in Europe, and we're rebuilding them all the time. To what extent can we develop a new dimension of accessibility -- Mobility, information, and the way people interact with each other? So we can make the old European system new again, to a certain extent, by looking at it from the perspective of accessibility, and particularly through the lens of people who have visual impairments or who are blind.

Disability World: Can you give me an example of a particular city and what kinds of changes you imagine would make that city more accessible in all those dimensions you mentioned?

Devlieger: The city I'm working in most is my own city, the city of Leuven. The city has done a lot of endeavors in terms of attracting tourists. If you look at it from the perspective of tourism, and you look at it from the perspective of accessibility, you can go at it from a couple of different routes. For example, with one of the persons who is visually impaired, I'm developing a tour that is going to try to look at the city not from the visual senses but from a tactile perspective and from a perspective of listening. It gives a different look at how you can experience the city. In terms of physical accessibility, we're having a good look at particular sites in the city, to see how we can make them a more multi-sensorial environment, a more accessible environment in terms of information, in terms of mobility. So we're looking at it from a quality of life perspective.

It's an interdisciplinary conference. We're going to work closely with architects. We're going to have social scientists, architects, people who are visually impaired and blind, and also people from city governments. I think that's very important. The city government is very much interested to implement policies by which every time they do construction work to rebuild the city, they want to insert a component of accessibility into it. There's also going to be a public forum that we're preparing. And we're preparing a text that we will use to hold city governments accountable for certain things that they could do in the next couple of years to improve the way that disabled and non-disabled people can interact with each other within the context of the city.

Disability World: Have you found that, in general, there's resistance to accessibility when it comes to historic sites? With the idea that accessibility will ruin the historic nature of a city?

Devlieger: I think the major thing is aesthetics. To give you an example, a lot of historical buildings are made out of natural stone, which is grayish-bluish. From an accessibility point of view, for someone who is visually impaired, it's good to have some contrast -- yellow against a dark background, or something like that. There may be some resistance, in terms of aesthetics, to implement things like that.

Disability World: How do you overcome that resistance?

Devlieger: It needs some creative work. For example, if you cannot work in terms of visual contrast, you can work in terms of tactile contrast. I think with some creative thinking, you can still have some contrast that is useable for people who have visual impairments.

Disability World: Are there any good models of that in specific buildings that have been done? Or are you hoping to create models?

Devlieger: We hope to create models, but I think there are some examples. For example, I know at my University, at which I would say most of the buildings are non-accessible, yet there are good examples, for example, the University Hall, which is a historic building. They created ramps in natural stone that are aesthetically very beautiful, and yet they are also doing what they need to do to provide access.

Disability World: Will you also be looking at some of the major, really well-known historic buildings throughout Europe -- like, say, Notre Dame cathedral? Or will you target select cities?

Devlieger: Right now we're just taking a very local model -- just basically our own city -- and trying to develop a methodology where we can analyze particular sites, especially from a multi-sensorial point of view, and say, if you're mobility impaired, if you're visually impaired, if you have some kind of issue with that particular environment, then how could you develop particular solutions to it? What we would do in an experimental mode is to develop certain modifications that would actually enhance the capacity of that environment. We're not looking at disability from an individual perspective, in terms of how you can modify a particular individual through a medical intervention; we're looking at how we can enhance the capacity of the environment. We are trying to develop an analysis of environments -- not only physical but also informational.

Disability World: Do different European countries have laws requiring access in public places? And are historic buildings exempted from that? Or do those laws not exist yet?

Devlieger: There are a number of human rights legislations, but we still have a long way to go with implementation. As far as I know, there are no access laws. There is no legal mandate at this point to make anything accessible, really. But there is a lot of good will to make public buildings accessible and to start there. But there are a lot of private buildings that are totally inaccessible.

In the United States, there's a lot of talk about civil rights, about human rights. The European context is a little bit different. Civil rights doesn't seem to be as much of a burning issue as it is in the United States. I think it's because the political context is a little different. In Europe, we have a social security system that is quite well-developed, where people have a lot of services and a lot of access to services. There's also an extensive institutional base. People try to protect that because they believe in the quality of the institutions, and they don't want to do away with them. On the other hand, in the United States, where you don't have this social security system as developed as it is, there's much more need to go the route of human rights and civil rights.

Disability World: The activities of the International Year of Disabled Persons, are they broad-based? Is there a strong grassroots component as well? How would you describe the activity around this year?

Devlieger: I think there's a big grassroots component. Apart from the theme of accessibility, it's very much focused on disabled and non-disabled people doing things together. Most of the activities are low-key, based in all kinds of activities and organizations. It could be the Scouts doing activities.

Disability World: Are you getting support for these initiatives from the tourism industry?

Devlieger: Yes, absolutely. We will pilot different kinds of tourism -- for example, tourism that uses mostly listening, or that uses mostly tactile -- so there will be sensorial variations in how tourism is done. We believe that if you do a city tour that is tactile-based, it is not only for visually impaired people. Other people would also benefit from another way of experiencing the city. We have one tour guide who is visually impaired, himself, who is going to develop a particular tour that's going to be piloted in Leuven.

Disability World: Is there anything else that you would like to say about the conference?

Devlieger: It will be a very nice happening. We're looking at alternative ways of exploring and dealing with disability, celebrating the diversity of disability, but at the same time making it very practical and very eclectic. It's not just a celebration, but it's something that can enhance quality of life, not only for people who are disabled but for everybody. We'll be expanding the way we experience the world. We'd like to see some changes at the city level, so that it can not only enhance the quality of life of able-bodied citizens, but can also capture the needs and expectations of disabled people.

For any further inquiries, please contact
Prof. Patrick Devlieger
Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology
University of Leuven
Tiensestraat 102
3000 Leuven
Belgium
Phone: +32-16-326047 or +32-16-326007 (secr.)
Fax: +32-16-326000
Email: Patrick.Devlieger@ant.kuleuven.ac.be