{"id":74065,"date":"2021-09-14T14:58:59","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T18:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=74065"},"modified":"2021-09-14T14:58:59","modified_gmt":"2021-09-14T18:58:59","slug":"faculty-focus-chelsea-jones-finds-purpose-in-the-stories-of-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2021\/09\/faculty-focus-chelsea-jones-finds-purpose-in-the-stories-of-others\/","title":{"rendered":"FACULTY FOCUS: Chelsea Jones finds purpose in the stories of others"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: Faculty Focus is a monthly series that highlights faculty whose compelling passions, innovative ideas and various areas of expertise help weave together the fabric of Brock University\u2019s vibrant community. For more from the series,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chelsea Jones has always been enamoured with storytelling.<\/p>\n

From childhood fairy tales to hard-hitting news pieces, her love of narratives played a pivotal role in her life growing up and has only strengthened with time.<\/p>\n

Now an Assistant Professor in Brock\u2019s Department of Child and Youth Studies, Jones has harnessed that passion, using it to impact the field of Critical Disability Studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a kid, I had a big imagination and wanted to be a writer,\u201d Jones says. \u201cI just knew that I loved reading stories, hearing stories and telling stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

While her friends aspired to become doctors and firefighters, Jones found herself drawn in a different direction \u2014 to the library.<\/p>\n

Elementary and high school research projects opened her eyes to the world of possibilities that exist in a building filled with books and knowledge.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Chelsea Jones, Assistant Professor in Brock\u2019s Department of Child and Youth Studies, uses her journalism skills both in the classroom and while hosting Podagogies: A Teaching and Learning Podcast.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI remember thinking \u2018I wish there was a job where I could read and write most days,\u2019 but I didn\u2019t know the name of that job,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t know the name of the job for going to the library.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones was soon introduced to journalism through a high school class and was immediately captivated. After graduation, the Saskatchewan native further developed her nose for news at the University of Regina.<\/p>\n

Although her university experience didn\u2019t take her far from home, it allowed her the space to develop as a storyteller.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was accepted into a few different journalism programs at different schools. Some of them were considered more prestigious than the one in my backyard, but I couldn\u2019t really afford to go elsewhere for university,\u201d Jones recalls. \u201cI stayed local for my undergraduate studies and I\u2019m so glad that I did. There was real value in learning your craft in a place where you understand the local stories and the local people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having grown up with a disabled brother, Jones had particular interest in telling stories about disability. As she pressed forward, however, she felt herself \u201cfalling into some stereotypical representational tropes of disabled people without initially realizing it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

This set into motion her mission to learn how to tell stories of disability in a new way.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes audiences didn\u2019t understand. Sometimes editors didn\u2019t understand,\u201d she says. \u201cA lot of what that meant was getting out of the way and trying to find ways to support communities who wanted to tell their own stories and build their own platforms \u2014 and sometimes that meant removing my byline from stories altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones delved deeper into this concept after graduating with her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and receiving the coveted Ron Robinson Travel Scholarship, which allowed her to spend a year abroad in Nepal.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I realized in Nepal is that the ways I had been taught to think about disability and to understand disability were very different than in other parts of the world,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is something that Critical Disability Studies is working through and I\u2019m so happy to be working in this field at a time when global disability studies and transnational conversations are part of the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones arrived in Nepal expecting to easily encounter people with disabilities who she could engage on collaborative storytelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t physically find them. It took a lot of digging to find these people who were sort of socially hidden away,\u201d she says. \u201cEven though Canada also has historically segregated disabled people, and still does today, it was a real learning experience to go to another place and realize I wasn\u2019t seeing people with disabilities on the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once Jones was finally able to connect with people with disabilities in Nepal, she says they were \u201cengaged in a lot of justice activism and resistance that looked totally different than what I had ever encountered.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really a revelation to be able to witness people engaged in disability justice in ways that I hadn\u2019t seen before in the West and in ways that responded specifically to what they needed rather than this larger idea of what we think disability should be,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The transformative experience drove Jones to complete her master\u2019s degree in Critical Disability Studies at York University upon her return to Canada.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Spending time with community members during her year in Nepal left a lasting impact on Chelsea Jones.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cOnce I realized that Critical Disability Studies was the path I wanted to follow, I learned to teach and write in different ways,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Jones went on to earn her PhD in Communication and Culture at Ryerson University, where she taught for eight years before joining Brock\u2019s Faculty of Social Sciences last year.<\/p>\n

By combining Child and Youth Studies with her Critical Disability Studies background, she aims to \u201cengage with students in thinking about disability and disabled childhoods in some new and really exciting ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critical Disability Studies looks at disability with a political lens, Jones says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt thinks about our many approaches to disability, and it really attends to the generative possibilities of difference among people,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s relational, it\u2019s embodied and it\u2019s deeply critical, because it thinks about the intersections and structural dimensions of our lives and where that comes from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones says the field\u2019s ever-changing nature and its reliance on the stories of those who are most impacted by it \u2014 often people who are intellectually disabled, mad or deaf \u2014 has kept her interest piqued through the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cCritical Disability Studies is always shifting and always evolving in response to the world. In that way, it always has a place in the world,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stories of lived experiences from those who are most impacted, they are always changing, and they become the authority in the field. I continue to be drawn to the stories that help shape the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

While her career has taken her to academia, Jones maintains that journalism has remained at the core of her journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned along the way that there are a million different ways to do journalism,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cJournalism is not always what we imagine it to be, because it\u2019s such a morphing, changing practice that responds to the world. Journalistic storytelling can change forms. It can be academic, it can be casual in the classroom and it can be creative.\u201d<\/p>\n

To further encourage her creative side outside of the classroom, Jones also co-hosts Podagogies: A Teaching and Learning Podcast<\/a>, which explores the work of post-secondary educators who teach students in compelling, innovative and surprising ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chelsea Jones has always been enamoured with storytelling. From childhood fairy tales to hard-hitting news pieces, her love of narratives played a pivotal role in her life growing up and has only strengthened with time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":74079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3319,1,4,38],"tags":[10332,45,10715,8634],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74065"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74082,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74065\/revisions\/74082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}