Attitudes towards people with disabilities in Greenland and the need for empowered changes

ABSTRACT

In order to understanding public attitudes towards people with disabilities in Greenland and analyse how to facilitate further empowerment, a national survey was produced in 2020. The results from the survey showed a clear difference in attitudes towards people with either physical or mental disabilities. The survey ‘Holdninger til Handicap’ (attitudes towards disabilities), which was carried out by Tilioq (the spokesperson institution for people with disabilities) and Ilisimatusarfik Centre for Arctic Welfare, included almost 1,000 responses. Respondents had a more positive view of people with physical disabilities than those with mental disabilities. Furthermore, the survey highlights a prejudice among respondents in relation to dating or having intimate relationships with a person with a disability or mental disability. Despite the respondents’ divided view of having an intimate relationship with people with disabilities, there was more openness to accepting people with a physical disability in a position of power (e.g. politicians or managers). However, the respondents were not willing to accept people with mental disabilities in positions of power. The study in Greenland is the first to explore barriers and attitudes towards people with disabilities in non-intimate and intimate social relationships and power relationships. The study provided knowledge to support decision-makers and NGOs in informing society in general about physical and mental disabilities and the rights of disabled people in Greenland in relation to empowerment and further inclusion.

KEYWORDS:

• Greenland
• disability
• empowerment
• disability studies
• public attitudes

Introduction

We initiated a survey of the attitudes towards people with disability in Greenland to better understand how to proceed with inclusion practices in the future. The study relates to the four major types of disability: physical, sensory, mental, and cognitive. In order to avoid research fatigue, we have condensed the question to physical and mental disabilities, which we explain in more detail in the methods section.

People with disabilities have been historically disenfranchised in the west.¹ Hardly any historical research has been conducted in this area in the Arctic. In this article we briefly touch upon historical traces of disability in Greenland, but the focus is on current conditions and how to empower them. The intention behind this study from 2020 by Tilioq (the spokesperson institution for people with disabilities in Greenland) and Ilisimatusarfik’s Centre for Arctic Welfare was an empowerment endeavour. We wanted to understand the level of public awareness of disabilities to further the process of creating more critical consciousness towards people with disabilities.

It is important to establish a baseline for how to proceed methodologically to increase awareness of the rights of people with disabilities. As stated above social science studies of disability are rare in Greenland, as well as in countries with a longer tradition of social science studies.² Being disabled is far more common than is understood from an administrative point of view, in the sense that the number of people who self-report having a disability in Greenland far exceeds the number of people receiving benefits or services through rights-based legislation. For every one person who receives public services related to a disability, there are four to five more who self-report having a disability. This is true in both Greenland and Scandinavia.³ Greenland still has a way to come when discussing Honneth’s concept of recognition, Bauman’s ideas of anti-segregation together with Goodley and Harpur’s arguments to create more political awareness about better inclusion of people with disabilities.

The study showed a clear attitude bias. The survey conducted in 2020 included almost 1,000 respondents. Overall, the findings show that the respondents favour people with physical disabilities over people with mental disabilities. In the Arctic, there is a lack of studies investigating disabilities. Historically in Greenland, people with disabilities have been overlooked by politicians and by academics. However, new winds are blowing in Greenland. In 2017, Inatsisartut (Greenland’s Parliament) created Tilioq. Tilioq is a politically independent national advocacy organisation that promotes the rights of people with disabilities. Tilioq’s purpose is to actively work towards equal right and treatment for people with disabilities.⁴ The organisation also creates public and political awareness about the rights of people with disabilities. They produce field reports from site visits around Greenland from south Greenland in 2018 and North Greenland in 2019.⁵ Both reports generated substantial media attention about unjust treatment of people with disabilities. Tilioq provides a daily hotline so that people with disabilities and their families can call in about cases such as mistreatment, long case work time failed decisions etc. Anonymous call logs and themes from the hot line are turns in to annual reports.⁶ Tilioq works towards fully implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Moreover, the organisation collects data about people with disabilities in Greenland to provide decision-makers with the knowledge to make informed policy decisions.

In this paper, we discuss the findings from a Greenlandic national survey, concerning the public opinion towards people with disabilities and mental disabilities. The survey is inspired by studies in the United Kingdom with 2,000 respondents and Denmark with 7,640 respondents.⁷ It differs in the sense that it is a first of its kind in an Arctic country. The representation is very high with 1:56 Greenlanders being included compared similar studies of 1:33,500 in the UK and 1:720 in Denmark. The ambition was to avoid talking about disability as a fixed category, which sometimes is understood through the model perspective of a medical or a social model. The medical model views disability as a pathology (a physical, sensory, mental, and cognitive failing) that handicaps persons affected because the surrounding environment as well as the demands of the social and occupational activities of the person may become disabling.⁸ The social model on the other hand sees disability purely as a social construct and a human rights issue. In this model disability is not an individual responsibility. It is constructed socially like physical obstacles that hinder access to buildings or other facilities. A transformation of this requires that the society changes.⁹ Perspectives from the social models are the reason why we in this survey focus on aspects such as intimacy. Because we then emphasise intimacy as a basic human need first and foremost before talking about disability. This survey about attitudes therefore includes both intimate relationships and the respondents’ relations to people in power positions.

Researching disability in an Arctic context

Being the world’s largest island with 56,000 inhabitants,¹⁰ Greenland is located above the 60th parallel north with Canada to the east and Iceland to the West. The capital Nuuk is Greenland’s administrative and educational hub with 19,500 citizens. The second most populated city is Sisimiut and the location of Tilioq. Sisimiut has approximately 5,500 inhabitants.¹¹ Greenland’s infrastructure is challenging as no roads connect the towns and settlements. These are only reachable by air, sea, and land via dog sleds and snowmobiles. Planes, helicopters, and boats are the main form of domestic travel. Greenlanders must fly through Iceland or Denmark to reach international destinations.

The Self-Government Act entered into force on the 21st of June 2009 on Greenland’s National Day. Based on an agreement between Inatsisartut and the Danish Government act framed the two parts as equal partners. The Act came about through a referendum by the Greenlandic people held on the 25th of November 2008. The Danish Parliament adopted the Act on the 12th of June 2009. Greenland is semi-autonomous, with political and legislative autonomy over several policy areas such as health, housing, building regulations, social affairs, education, and the labour market, covering the general legislative areas concerning people with disabilities.¹² As a nation, Greenland is still together with the Faroe Islands a part of the Danish Realm.

Before the Second World War people with a disability was an overlooked part of the population. Typically reports concerned blindness and mobility issues. Mentions of mental disabilities are rare in historical records. However, as late as 1910, the Danish ruled administration and the national assembly (Inatsisartut) discussed what to do about a few older adults who were described as blind. The women came from different settlements in the south, some from towns such as Narsaq, Qaqortoq, or Nanortalik. Administrators initially proposed to build a common house for them in Qaqortoq and Paamiut. However, for economic reasons, the proposal was dismissed. Nevertheless, the definitive reason was that the women would be required to move away from their families to come and live in the new housing. Finally, the decision-makers concluded that the women would achieve a better quality of life by staying with their families.^{13, 14} The debates and reports about the blind women didn’t testify to what the women themselves wanted. They were not given an official voice. The current study about attitudes is an effort to focus on issues close to people with disabilities and stress the importance of including the people that are in focus of the study. We learn from the past, by not repeating what we today understand as mistakes.

From the 1950s, the authorities transferred many Greenlanders with disabilities to Denmark to various care facilities (ca. 3,500 km from their homes). During the 1970s and 1980s, Greenland began building its care facilities, meaning that Greenlanders could stay in their own country – but not always close to their families.¹⁵ The new care facilities’ locations were mainly in Nuuk, Sisimiut, Qaqortoq, and Maniitsoq. The new care facilities became specialised and focused on different disabilities and age groups. Consequently, people not meeting the criteria of their local care facility had to move to another city to receive care. The situation is similar today for people with disabilities who require specialised care. Because of the geographical size of Greenland, its infrastructure, and expensive travel, families rarely visit their loved ones in far-distant care facilities. Having few cities in Greenland with care facilities means that disability is not visible to all citizens every day. The Greenlandic infrastructure creates an unfortunate gap between different groups of society. When people with disabilities aren’t visible in all aspects of life and all parts of Greenland this may create an out-of-sight out-of-mind mentality in the broad “non-disabled public. We don´t know if the lack of visibility has a negative or positive impact on the attitudes of people with disabilities because this study is the first baseline.

Attitudes towards people with disabilities

Predominantly, in Greenlandic politics, disabilities are understood from a normative perspective,¹⁶ where the focus has been on protecting people with disabilities. The main emphasis is on help and care rather than inclusion. In other words, people with disabilities are part of a group without being obliged to follow the dominant norm¹⁷ and integration. From a theoretical disability perspective, this means being yourself among others.¹⁸ The main emphasis in this paper is on participation, empowerment, and inclusion as human rights – human rights not reflected or embodied in society for people with mental disabilities or disabilities. Carole Pateman has pointed out that many institutions in democratic countries are not democratic. Education systems, workplaces, and families are not democratic institutions. They are ‘run’ by small decision-making units. To encounter democracy is, therefore, a matter of having a democratic mindset.¹⁹ People with disability have the right to be an equal part of society just like everyone else.²⁰ In this case, it is a matter of enjoying liberties on equal terms, like being part of public celebrations, being able to vote, and be heard on matters that matter to you. Therefore, it is crucial to identify possible obstacles to inclusion and spaces of equality and influence to help society and decision-makers empower people with disabilities. The study aims to put the produced knowledge to practical use through Tilioq and other agencies to overcome the identified barriers and ensure improved inclusion.

There is a long way to go before we see a better understanding of ableism. Ableism describes prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behaviours towards people with disabilities and mental disabilities. As a general prejudice concept ableism connects to people’s understanding of ‘normal’ abilities and the rights and benefits that follow people we call normal,²¹ incorporated into a social policy of disability and inclusion in Greenland. As a counter measurement to views of disability as a phenomenon that disrupts the commonality of life, Goodly suggests that we look at disability in the means of what it brings to society.^22,23 Ableism may be divided into physical ableism and mental ableism the first is based on discrimination of bodily functions and physical disability.²⁴ Mental ableism also known as sanism relates to discrimination of people with mental illnesses which can be in the form of lowered expectation of the persons cognitive abilities or learning abilities.²⁵

Attitudes or prejudices are complex belief systems that characterise how people think or feel about certain people or situations.²⁶ Studies on attitudes towards people with a disability indicate that people with disabilities are more likely than others to experience attitudes towards them as a barrier to broad participation in society (education, jobs, leisure).²⁷ Several studies on public attitudes towards people with nonvisible disabilities and mental disabilities find that attitudes towards them are harmful and damaging. People experiencing such conditions are more likely to encounter stigma and prejudice from members of the public in their day-to-day life.²⁸

The survey includes questions about intimate relationships on a general level, such as: ‘what would you feel about having a person with a disability as a romantic partner?’. It is a core human condition for everyone, including people with disabilities, to be able to form intimate relationships.²⁹ In disability studies, this is an extensive research area, but this has yet to be explored in Greenland. In Ireland, Andrew Deffew addressed the subject of intimacy among people with intellectual disabilities in his Ph.D. thesis.^30,31 Deffew’s work inspired us to address intimate relations within this 2020 survey.

Studies of attitudes towards people with disabilities often find negative attitudes, prejudices, or discriminatory behaviour. Mårten Söder³² argues that the direct translation of negative attitudes to prejudices might be one-sided. He points out that studies where the situational context is considered to suggest that negative attitudes might as well be an expression of ambivalence and conflicted values and perhaps a lack of experience in dealing with and surrounding yourself with people with disability. Attitudes do not, per definition, determine our actions, and it cannot be assumed that negative attitudes equal offensive or discriminating actions. At the same time, positive attitudes can be an expression of political correctness where the respondents answer more positively because of the awareness that the negative answer is less socially acceptable.³³

In a Greenlandic context, where disabled people have been sent to Denmark and are still not equally visible all over the country, the levels of uncertainty based on the unknown leading to ambivalence or ambiguity must be considered when analysing the results of an attitudinal study. These are prevailing positions that disempower the Greenlandic society.

Inclusion rooted in empowerment

The project is rooted in critical understandings of empowerment from the Brazilian educational scientist Paulo Freire and his writings about critical consciousness.³⁴ Empowerment moves beyond criticism towards action. Freire writes that action is not a mindless happening but action as a reflective activity (Freire 2007, chap. 1) Nowadays, there also exist more neoliberal versions of empowerment, where citizens are encouraged to take charge of their own destiny with the end goal of reducing public responsibilities and minimising public spending.³⁵ The critical approach, however, focuses on empowering the community and the entire country.³⁶ Empowerment is both a goal and a process. Creating awareness of the human rights of people with disabilities is a process, as is transforming structural barriers that prevent people with disabilities from becoming fully included members of society. When talking about empowerment as capacity building,³⁷ we move from theoretical descriptions of empowerment to concrete action where people with disabilities learn new skills and how to apply them. Society grows from gaining a more active and diverse population, which will broaden the democratic view of a community.

Empowerment is a fundamental element of disability research today. It is particularly evident in efforts to combat notions of disability as a disadvantage,³⁸ through the historical writing of disability,³⁹ and in the re-learning of indigenous traditions of including family members with disabilities as a public strategy.⁴⁰ In our view, empowerment is not conceptualised as an individual achievement. Nor is it understood, as is sometimes conveyed, as a zero-sum game in which people with disabilities gain empowerment at the expense of others, such as service providers.⁴¹ Rather, empowerment is viewed as a positive outcome for the entire community, including people with disabilities, their families, and society. The Declaration on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is a declaration of empowerment. Article 19(c) of the Declaration states that people with disabilities have the right to ‘full and effective participation and inclusion in society’.⁴²

The Greenlandic legislation mandating a spokesperson institution for people with disabilities is a central manifestation of the concept of empowerment. However, there is always the risk that a spokesperson institution could take over the voices of the people it advocates for without properly listening to them. Through countless public hearings, vast travelling to all areas of Greenland Tilioq has worked diligently to include the voice of the people they are working for. The concept of empowerment is sometimes hijacked as a token concept, that is supposed to pave the way for positive transformation of formerly disempowered areas, such as people with disabilities’ legal right to enter the labour market or have an education. It may be rightly stated in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, but a right stated on paper can be far from that right being realised in practice. To exemplify; It is currently not possible for a person with a sensory disability such as vision impairment to participate in any education at Ilisimatusarfik. The university does not provide literature in braille, and only small parts of the curricula are available as audiobooks. It is a form of false empowerment to encourage and instil a sense of power in a group when they may often find themselves in powerless situations.

Method & findings

We set out to study the attitudes of the Greenlandic public towards people with disabilities. To understand public attitudes, we asked questions about how comfortable you were towards people with disabilities in professional and learning environments and intimate social relations and power relations.

The survey consisted of two parts. The background variables consisting of 7 questions including: ‘would you describe yourself as being disabled?’. This was followed by the attitude section which contained 27 questions with response options in a 5-point likert scale ranging from “strongly agree“to ‘strongly disagree’ with the option of ‘undecided’ and the variation ‘Very fine’ to ‘not fine at all’ with the option of ‘undecided’. The survey followed a structured interview schedule. The main body of the schedule included questions measuring attitudes towards people with disabilities. Each question measured attitudes towards physical disabilities and then mental disabilities. The survey questions were translated into Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) and Danish. The respondents had the option to choose their preferred language.

During January and February 2020, the Greenlandic survey bureau HS-Analyse conducted a phone survey. The bureau has longstanding experience with phone surveys and train surveyors ahead of time. The respondents were drawn randomly from the national phone provider Tusass. The sample includes both permanent phone subscribers and pre-paid calling phone cards. The inclusion of pre-paid calling cards secures the inclusion of low-income respondents, who often are underrepresented in similar surveys. Nearly 1,000 respondents which were representative of the Greenlandic population on the parameters of gender, employment, and age completed the survey and were asked about their attitudes towards people with disabilities.

The data was firstly produced as a report on descriptive statistics by HS-Analyse supplemented by a csv-file⁴³ with the complete dataset. We analysed this using both SPSS and Excel’s data tool. In the analytical process we have focused on a descriptive statistical approach.

Some limitations of this study are related to it being the first of its kind in Greenland and demonstrating the need for more comparative national research. In addition, we are also in an early stage of understanding disability academically in Greenland.

At the start of the study, we anticipated asking about the four main types of disability defined in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (physical, sensory, mental, and cognitive). However, fearing we would reach research fatigue,⁴⁴ we opted for a downgraded approach.

Ethical considerations

It has never been the intention of this research to be able to identify individuals in the dataset. This research has been conducted with The Spokesperson institution for people with disability as a partner. The institution prioritises ethical considerations. The interview persons have all been protected, with no identifiers that can lead back to the dataset; hence all identifying information has been removed.⁴⁵

Findings

Table 1 together with Figures 1 and 2 shows how the respondents are distributed.

Table 1. Distribution of respondents.

Total	Number n = 997	Percentage 100
a) Man	486	49
Woman	510	51
b) 18–29	283	28
30–39	166	17
40–49	169	17 21
50–59	211
60–69	108	11
70+	59	6
d) Unskilled worker	438	44
Skilled worker	55	6
Tertiary education	75	8
Ba-degree and above	117	12
Self-employed	17	1
Fishermen/hunter	67	7
Pensioner	114	12
Student	98	10

Figure 1. Distribution of gender.

Figure 2. Distribution of age.

The sample is slightly over-represented by respondents under 30 years (4%) compared with the general population.⁴⁶ However, respondents from this age group have a more positive attitude towards people with disabilities than the older age groups in the sample. Moreover, this positive attitude applies to questions measuring attitudes towards people with mental disabilities. Therefore, the over-representation of people in this age group might give a skewed perception of positive attitudes towards people with mental disabilities in Greenland.

At the beginning of the survey, all respondents were asked to identify if they were disabled with the question, ‘Do you have a disability?’⁴⁷ 18% of the respondents self-identified as a person with a disability.⁴⁸ As this is the first survey that deals with the notion of self-identified disability in Greenland, it is not possible to compare the results to former studies. Nevertheless, the result resembles the estimate of the World Health Organisation, which suggests that around 15% of the world population lives with a disability.⁴⁹ Also, the respondents were asked if they had family relations with or knew someone with a disability. Almost half of the respondents answered that they had family relations with someone with a disability, and four out of five said they knew someone with a disability, which suggests the yes respondents to this question have experience interacting with disabled people.

As stated above, the intention was to ask about the four different types (mental, intellectual, physical, and sensory) of impairment that the UN Convention on rights for people with disabilities defines.⁵⁰ The relatively large amount of ‘do not know’-answers further suggests that this was an important choice for the reliability of the data. The implications of the ‘do not know answers on the survey results will be discussed later in the article.

The overall findings show two results – first, the nature of the relation to the person with disability matters. Second, attitudes differ if respondents are asked about people with mental or physical disability. Prevalent attitudes towards people with mental and physical disabilities differ when asked about relations where the people with disability are in a position of power or influence.

Non-intimate and intimate relationships

The survey results show a tendency for attitudes to change positively with non-intimate relationships, such as families and co-workers, and more negatively towards more intimate relationships, such as dating a person with a disability. Nevertheless, also, the type of disability affects the respondents’ attitude.

Overall, respondents show positive attitudes when asked about relations with a social character but are not intimate – such as colleagues or sports partners/teammates. The less intimate, the more positive the attitudes. 91% said they would be all right sitting next to a person with a disability in a café. The picture changed when respondents were asked about relations that are still purely social and still distanced but closer to the intimate sphere. As seen in Table 2, Figure 3, most respondents are still optimistic about having a neighbour with a physical disability; 92% answered positively, but less so when the neighbour has a mental health disability − 69% of the respondents gave a positive answer.

Figure 3. Attitudes towards having a person with a disability as a neighbour.

Table 2. Attitudes towards physical and mental health disability.

	Fine	Rather not	Not at all	Don’t Know
Physical disability	92	2	1	5
Mental health disability	69	10	3	18

Table 2, Figure 3. Attitudes towards having a person with a disability as a neighbour, pct.

Respondents were asked:

”How would you feel, if a person with physical/mental disability moved in next door to you?”

Table 3 and Figure 4 show attitudes towards having a person with a disability as a colleague. Here a difference is also noticeable with a preference toward people with physical disabilities.

Table 3. Attitudes towards having a person with a disability as a colleague.

	Fine	Rather not	Not at all	Don’t Know
Physical disability	70	8	4	18
Mental health disability	43	13	17	27

Figure 4. Attitudes towards having a person with a disability as a colleague.

Respondents working as fishermen and hunters are the least likely to have positive attitudes towards colleagues with a physical (45%) or a mental disability (36%). On the other hand, students are the most positive towards having a colleague with a physical (82%) or mental health disability (76%). A study from Denmark on employers’ willingness to hire people with a disability is highly dependent on the understanding of the workplace as accessible for the person with a disability and their prior experience of having employees with a disability.⁵¹ Perhaps this suggests that workplaces linked with the Greenlandic cultures, such as fishing and hunting, are seen as inaccessible for people with disabilities, resulting in people with disabilities not having access to make an income from this cultural lifestyle.

Respondents were asked:

”How would you feel, about working with a person with physical/mental health disability?”

The difference between non-intimate and intimate relations gets obvious as respondents are asked if they can imagine having a romantic partner with a disability (Table 4, Figure 5). Here less than one-third answers positive about having a partner with a disability. In the survey, this is the only place where we do not see a significant difference between respondents’ attitudes towards people with a physical disability and people with a mental health disability.

Figure 5. Attitudes towards having a person with a disability as a romantic partner.

Table 4. Attitudes towards having a person with a disability as a romantic partner.

	Fine	Rather not	Not at all	Don’t Know
Physical disability	31	16	24	29
Mental health disability	28	12	34	26

Respondents were asked:“Could you imagine having an romantic partner with a physical/mental health disability?

Table 4, Figure 5. Attitudes towards having a person with a disability as a romantic partner, pct.

The segregation and institutionalisation of people with disabilities in society have created negative perceptions about their sexuality.⁵² People with disability were either understood as unable to explore their sexuality through healthy means or considered sexually obsessed and sexually inappropriate. Since the 2000s, service providers, staff, and the public have become more progressive towards people with disabilities’ sexuality.⁵³ However, a prominent stereotype linked to the perception of sexuality is that people and especially women with disability, are unfit for parenthood.⁵⁴ Similar attitudes towards people with a physical disability have been documented by Hunt⁵⁵ through a survey conducted in South Africa examining public attitudes towards people with a physical disability. The South African case finds that stereotypes towards people with physical disabilities focus on attributes such as being withdrawn and shy or happy and kind. However, attributes of sexuality are not traits often cited for people with disability. Further, the studies find that traits attributed to the sexuality of women with physical disabilities suggest negative attitudes around women as undesirable partners and unfit for motherhood.

The findings of this study show that the more intimate the relationship, the less favourable the attitudes suggest that these findings from Ireland and South Africa might resonate with the Greenlandic public. Our study enables us to speak to the attitudes of different relationship constellations based on a nation-wide study with good generalisability with nearly 1,000 respondents out of a population of 56,000. The Irish mixed method study focused on intellectual disability alone and that quantitative part consisted of 86 participating staff members.⁵⁶ The South African study specifically discussed variations of sexuality in relation to people with disabilities and people without disabilities, it was based on a sample of 1,990 respondents in a nation with a population around 61 million.⁵⁷

While the attitudes are positive in situations (e.g. sitting next to a person) where questions of sexuality and partnership are not at play, positive traits such as kind of shy might be dominant. In contrast, the question of sexuality becomes prevalent when asked directly about intimate relations with people with a disability resulting in negative attitudes.

Power relations – mental disability is disvalued

The difference in attitudes towards people with a mental condition and a physical disability becomes evident when asked about relations that include power dynamics. The respondents were more inclined to accept someone with a physical disability in a position of power (e.g. politicians or managers) instead of someone with a mental disability.

In 1. Respondents were asked ”How would you feel if a member of Inatsisartut had physical/mental disability?”

In 2. Respondents were asked ”How would you feel, if a person with physical/health disability became manager at your work?”

As shown in Table 5, most respondents are comfortable with having a person with a physical disability as a member of Inatsisartut, and two out of three are comfortable with their boss or manager having a physical disability. On the other hand, only around one out of three respondents show positive attitudes towards people with a mental disability in the same positions. The latter suggests that the Greenlandic population is incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of a person with a mental disability being in a position of authority. Attributes such as dangerous, unpredictability, and immorality are dominant stereotypes of people with mental disabilities (Nairo-Redmond, 2020). The Greenlandic media favours creating newspaper headlines about incidents of criminality with information on the mental health status of the charged (e.g. known in the psychiatric department), fuelling the understanding of a person with mental disabilities as causing insecurity.

Table 5. Attitudes towards having people with disabilities in positions of power.

		Fine	Rather not	Not at all	Don’t Know
1. Manager	Physical disability	62	8	5	25
	Mental health disability	30	18	18	34
2. Member of Parliament	Physical disability	81	5	3	11
	Mental health disability	35	25	13	27

The “don’t know”-answers

In several of the questions, there are high percentages of ‘do not know’-answers.

Self-report measures of attitudes can be sensitive to social desirability concerns.⁵⁸ ‘Do not know’-answers could stem from the motivation to appear less judgemental or prejudiced to the interviewer. This can be further suggested by the fact that the ‘Do not know’ category significantly increases when the answers incite more negative attitudes. Social desirability bias has been shown to primarily occur with sensitive questions, leading to more positive answers and more item non-response.⁵⁹

Another reason for the large amount of ‘do not know’-answers can be anticipated to be linked to the fact that disability for a long time has been a non-topic in Greenland. Moreover, the presence of people with disabilities in public spaces is still a relatively new sight, let alone interactions with people with disabilities in workplaces, schools, or relationships.⁶⁰ Therefore, respondents might not have given the question of disability much thought and have not yet formed their attitudes towards people with disability. Therefore, they do not know the answer can also be understood as ambivalence rather than prejudice caused by a lack of experience.⁶¹

Discussion

To this day, research into public attitudes towards disability is scarce in Greenland and the Arctic. The history of moving people with disabilities out of the country resulting in removing them from the public scene must be considered an essential factor affecting the public’s attitude, expectations, and the (lack of) political focus on disability. By removing anyone from a social environment we deprive them of the ability and the right to be seen. One of the German sociologist Axel Honneth’s main point about being recognised in society is to be seen and included. This needs to occur in both the intimate sphere around family and friends and in the general public. Being out of sight for people with disabilites is the same as being out of mind and thus all aspects of equal participation in society.⁶² Honneth calls the act of considering a person invisible an act of violation.⁶³ The violation goes both ways – the citizens in Greenland who do not meet people with disabilities risk of becoming unaware and conform to a what Bauman calls a homogenic society where people with disabilities aren’t present. Segregation for whatever reason only increases conformity and according to Bauman its other face intolerance.⁶⁴ Nevertheless, taking this into account, this study does not differ significantly from other international attitude studies.⁶⁵ It sheds light on the barriers that face empowerment, inclusion, and the democratic right to equal participation. The data suggest that less than one-third of the Greenlandic population can imagine having a romantic relationship with someone with a disability.

The theory suggests different reasons for and consequences of these attitudes. Are the attitudes to be understood as ambivalence rather than prejudice? The historical contexts, the high percentage of ‘do not know’ responses, and the present-day institutionalisation of people with multiple physical disabilities could explain ambivalence rather than prejudice. On the other hand, one might ask whether the attitudes are ambivalent rather than prejudiced if both affect the inclusion and democratic right the equal participation. Indeed, the means to combat the negative attitudes must be through public awareness and discussion of the full inclusion of people with disability in society. Tilioq has experienced many positive responses when presenting social media campaigns that portray people with disability. Especially one campaign called ‘My invisible disability’, created with the national umbrella organisation for disability organisations got much positive attention in the media and interactions with Tilioq on Facebook. Especially one video portraying a girl with schizophrenia got more than 800 likes and 80 shares, almost eight times as much as the average popular posts. Such popularity can point to the willingness of the public to understand the persons behind the disability and give hope for combating the uncertainty around people with mental health disabilities.

A critical look at the isolation effect of care homes

Nairo-Redmond argues that implicit and negative attitudes tend to evolve into stereotypes and discriminatory behaviours.⁶⁶ Even though we cannot predict the behavioural consequences of the negative attitudes in the survey, previous research teaches us to be mindful of such tendencies. This relates to the institutionalisation of people with disabilities in specialised care homes in a few cities around Greenland. One consequence is that in some parts of the country encounters between people with and without disabilities are rare and thus create an unfamiliarity between both parties. According to Nairo-Redmond an unfamiliarity of how to socialise between disabled people and non-disabled people may create interactions that are well‐intended but come across as rude, intrusive, and just plain ignorant.⁶⁷ People with disabilities can also be expected to be treated bad, which creates another barrier of distrust. To avoid that lower expectations towards positive social interaction become self-fulfilling prophecies more work into studying mixed relations and normalising social relations between disabled people and non-disabled need to take place in Greenland.

Future inclusions of the new disability rights paradigm

Looking into the future, we should be more inspired by Goodley’s work and challenge prior conventional ways of non-disabled talking about and conducting studies on people with disabilities without including them in the process. Goodley further suggests that before conducting another research project it is asked: Will this disability study focus on understanding how a society like the Greenlandic is disabling?⁶⁸ This is a core question for future research. This plays right into Tilioq’s newly adopted motto of: Nothing about us without us.⁶⁹

Then this study will call for future steps to move the perspective in social policy from shielding and caring to empowerment, inclusion, and participation for the sake of society and not just the sake of people with disability. For example, a step towards changing the normative perspective in society could be strengthening the implementation of ‘the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability’.

Thus far, disabilities are not mentioned in the Greenlandic Equality Act, despite being recommended by several National and International Human Rights bodies (e.g. the United Nations, The Danish Institute of Human Rights, The Greenlandic Counsel of Human Rights, and the Greenlandic Spokesperson for People with disability). A focus on equality in the Convention, and the protection from discrimination, broaden the Greenlandic population’s perspective on and attitude to disability.

Alternatively, as Paul Harpur put it in the article: ‘Embracing the new disability rights paradigm: the importance of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability’. Harpur attacks normalising policies that focus on the non-disabled parts of a population. Fixing people with disabilities, he writes, has created inferior and exclusionary policies.⁷⁰ Welfare policies are about welfare for all disregarding levels of function. Under the convention, disability is not regarded as a medical condition requiring assistance but as an aspect of social diversity.

Conclusion – moving towards a more inclusive future

We found that a generalisable part of the Greenlandic population understand disability as less problematic when it comes to physical disabilities than mental health disabilities. Visibility is a central factor in this instance. To the public, disability is what we see – the wheelchair or the white cane. People with these disabilities can be co-workers, govern, and the public has no problem envisioning a leader with a physical disability. However, the perception changes when the public cannot see the disability – people become much more reluctant. We can almost observe the uncertainty and discomfort in the data. There is a sharp drop in approval of being led, governed, or having a colleague with a mental disability. At the same time, there is an increase in respondents answering, ‘do not know’, which indicates a level of uncertainty towards hidden disabilities. The uncertainty and the unknown are almost unreflectively associated with negative attitudes that are unfounded in reality – because by socialising with other people, we are sharing attitudes and opening ourselves to new impressions.

Either the revelation of the population’s positive attitudes towards physical disability versus its more reluctant approach to mental disabilities, or both, really highlight areas for future empowerment practices. In some critical theoretical research environments, surveys and quantitative studies have been reduced to mere positivism. This is also aligned with social studies that are only validated as bureaucratic tools that serve a central bureaucracy, without any critical perspective. This study, however, not only reveals a divide in the popular understanding of disability, but also shows where we can focus empowerment strategies and work to evaluate how the empowerment of people with mental health disabilities can go beyond fake empowerment methodologies. This calls for political initiatives, top-down, and bottom-up implementation. A political strategy can enhance an important focus on proper inclusion and create an Arctic society that’s creating abilities and not disabling anyone who doesn´t fit into what a majority perceives as normal. Citizens should be informed of their right to be part of the labour market and the educational system. It can empower not just the individual citizen with a mental health disability, but also educate the public through active campaigns about what mental disabilities are and what common misunderstandings lead to prejudice and failure in learning proper inclusion of everyone in the labour market and education system.

Both from the perspective of disability studies, disability is always a two-sided coin and says much about the society that labels something as a disability. A society that does not adjust, grow, and learn from the different ways that humanity can present itself will remain a disabled society. Empowerment, therefore, for Greenland goes all the way around. A more wholesome inclusion of people with disabilities in society will show the citizens of any community the full spectrum of humanity. Greenland will grow more nuanced from having people of all different forms of ability be more visible in society. We hardly encounter people with vision impairments or people with Down syndrome in Nuuk. As a result, non-disabled people miss out on the opportunity to learn from them and their views of life.

Going further with this research could be about creating more awareness of the social aspects of people with disabilities. This was demonstrated in studies from Australia and the UK, where inclusion in the school system was a success after the awareness training of teachers ties teachings about social and medical aspects of disabilities.⁷¹ Understanding how more awareness about rights and inclusion of a student with disabilities in the public school system is a research project that could be initiated on a trial basis and evaluate upon in the near future in collaboration with Tilioq’s. The spokesperson institution is already on a good path with the ongoing empowerment focus as mentioned above and this could be a foundation for a political focus on how to empower not just people with disabilities but the society with a stronger focus on inclusion in the political, social, and scientific aspects of people with disabilities. More studies like this can facilitate future inclusion and empowerment processes. Our findings suggest that even though barriers towards people with disabilities are not huge, Greenland still has plenty of space to grow when it comes to inclusion.

Acknowledgments

A wholehearted thanks goes to Associate Professor Kevin Perry for helping by proof reading this article

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Stainton, “Reason, Value and Persons: The Construction of Intellectual Disability in Western Thought from Antiquity to the Romantic Age’; Porter, Madness : A Brief History; Metzler, A Social History of Disability in the Middle Ages : Cultural Considerations of Physical Impairment.

² Loja, Costa, and Menezes, “Views of Disability in Portugal: ‘Fado’ or Citizenship?’; Harris et al., ‘We Still Don’t Count: The under-Counting and under-Representation of Māori in Health and Disability Sector Data’; Melbøe, ‘Cultural Sensitivity and Barriers: Sami People with Disabilities Facing the Welfare System’; Bevan-Brown, ‘Including People with Disabilities: An Indigenous Perspective.”

³ Grönvik, “Definitions of Disability in Social Sciences : Methodological Perspectives.”

⁴ Inatsisartut, Inatsisartutlov Nr. 1 Af 29. Maj 2017 Om Handicaptalsmand.

⁵ Tilioq, “Tilioq i Nord – Rejserapport Qaanaaq 2020’; Tilioq, ‘Tilioq Søsætter Kajakken – Rejserapport Kommune Kujalleq 2019.”

⁶ Tilioq, “Institutioner i Forfald Analyse Af Tilioqs Borgerhenvendelser Fra 2022.”

⁷ Aiden and McCarthy, Current Attitudes towards Disabled People; Ankestyrelsen and Det Centrale Handicapråd, Befolkningens holdninger og handlinger i relation til personer med handicap : rapport; Staniland and Office for Disability Issues, ‘Public Perceptions of Disabled People : Evidence from the British Social Attitudes Survey 2009’.

⁸ Frontera, “Medicine.”

⁹ Mitra, “Economic and Social Development.”

¹⁰ 88% Greenlandic/Inuit, 8% Danes, 4% others Statistics Greenland, Greenland in Figures 2020.

¹¹ Statistics Greenland, Greenland in Figures, 2023.

¹² Statsministeriet, en Grønlandske Selvstyreordning, 2009.

¹³ Arnfjord, Grønlands Socialpolitik, chap. 7.

¹⁴ Indenrigsministeriet, Beretninger Og Kundgørelser Vedrørende Styrelsen Af Grønland 1913–1917.

¹⁵ Derksen, “The ‘Greenlandization’ of Care: Disability in Postcolonial Greenland, 1950s–1980s.”

¹⁶ Bjelke, “Wild Thing: Handicap Som Krydsfelt.”

¹⁷ Ravaud and Stiker, “Inclusion and Exclusion.”

¹⁸ Parmenter, “Normalization.”

¹⁹ Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory.

²⁰ United Nations General Assembly, “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Optional Protocol.”

²¹ Nario-Redmond, Ableism : The Causes and Consequences of Disability Prejudice.

²² Goodley, Disability Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction.

²³ In Greenland we are yet to do studies of what care institutions brings to a city instead of looking at the city as a place of hosting care institutions.

²⁴ Levi, “Ableism.”

²⁵ Wolframe, “The Madwoman in the Academy, or, Revealing the Invisible Straightjacket: Theorizing and Teaching Saneism and Sane Privilege.”

²⁶ Aiden and McCarthy, Current Attitudes towards Disabled People.

²⁷ Aiden and McCarthy; Bredgaard, Thomas et al., Handicap Og Beskæftigelse – Fra Barrierer Til Broer; Fisher and Purcal, “Policies to Change Attitudes to People with Disabilities.”

²⁸ Staniland and Office for Disability Issues, “Public Perceptions of Disabled People : Evidence from the British Social Attitudes Survey 2009.”

²⁹ Shakespeare and Richardson, “The Sexual Politics of Disability, Twenty Years On.”

³⁰ Deffew, “Intimate Relationships and Sexuality for Adults with an Intellectual Disability: Exploring the Views of Adult Intellectual Disability Service Providers and Their Staff Members.”

³¹ We thank our anonymous reviewer for drawing our attention to this work.

³² ‘Prejudice or Ambivalence? Attitudes Toward Persons with Disabilities’.

³³ Bredgaard, Thomas et al., Handicap Og Beskæftigelse – Fra Barrierer Til Broer.

³⁴ Freire, Education For Critical Consciousness.

³⁵ Andersen and Elm Larsen, “Empowerment Og Social Forandring.”

³⁶ Craig and Mayo, Community Empowerment – A Reader in Participation and Development.

³⁷ Nussbaum, Women and Human Development – The Capabilities Approach; Chaskin, ‘Building Community Capacity: A Definitional Framework and Case Studies from a Comprehensive Community Initiative’.

³⁸ Mahmic, Kern, and Janson, “Identifying and Shifting Disempowering Paradigms for Families of Children With Disability Through a System Informed Positive Psychology Approach.”

³⁹ Buckingham, “Writing Histories of Disability in India: Strategies of Inclusion.”

⁴⁰ Bevan-Brown, “Including People with Disabilities: An Indigenous Perspective.”

⁴¹ Jackson, “Learning Disability and Advocacy: Obstacles to Client Empowerment.”

⁴² United Nations General Assembly, “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Optional Protocol.”

⁴³ Comma separated values.

⁴⁴ Clark, “We’Re over-Researched Here!”: Exploring Accounts of Research Fatigue within Qualitative Research Engagements”.

⁴⁵ Greenland is currently in the process of creating social scientific ethical guidelines and a research ethical counsel.

⁴⁶ Statistics Greenland, Greenland in Figures 2020.

⁴⁷ Authors translation from Greenlandic”:Illit nammineq innarluuteqarpit?” and in Danish: ‘Har du selv et handicap?’.

⁴⁸ There have not been any measures made to ensure answers from people with disabilities. And it must be assumed that people with disabilities with severe cognitive and mental disabilities, people with disabilities living at institutions or without a home is underrepresented in the survey Amilon et al., Personer med handicap : hverdagsliv og levevilkår 2016. There are further 126 people with disability living at institutions in Denmark, as it has been assessed that no facilities suit them in Greenland Departementet for Børn, Unge, Familier og Justitsområdet, Døgninstitutionernes Årsberetning 2020., they have not been targeted in the survey.

⁴⁹ World Health Organization, “WHO Global Disability Action Plan 2014–2021: Better Health for All People with Disability.”

⁵⁰ United Nations General Assembly, “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Optional Protocol.”

⁵¹ Krogh and Shamshiri-Petersen, ‘Fravalgt På Grund Af Handicap’.

⁵² Deffew, “Intimate Relationships and Sexuality for Adults with an Intellectual Disability: Exploring the Views of Adult Intellectual Disability Service Providers and Their Staff Members.”

⁵³ Deffew, 6.

⁵⁴ Nario-Redmond, Ableism : The Causes and Consequences of Disability Prejudice.

⁵⁵ Hunt et al., ”Withdrawn, Strong, Kind, but de-Gendered: Non-Disabled South Africans’ Stereotypes Concerning Persons with Physical Disabilities.”

⁵⁶ Deffew, “Intimate Relationships and Sexuality for Adults with an Intellectual Disability: Exploring the Views of Adult Intellectual Disability Service Providers and Their Staff Members, 41.”

⁵⁷ Hunt et al., “Withdrawn, Strong, Kind, but de-Gendered: Non-Disabled South Africans’ Stereotypes Concerning Persons with Physical Disabilities, 1587”.

⁵⁸ Hunt et al., 1590.

⁵⁹ Clark et al., Bryman’s Social Research Methods, 207.

⁶⁰ Derksen, “The ‘Greenlandization’ of Care: Disability in Postcolonial Greenland, 1950s–1980s.”

⁶¹ Söder, “Prejudice or Ambivalence? Attitudes Toward Persons with Disabilities.”

⁶² Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition : The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts.

⁶³ Honneth, “Recognition: Invisibility: On the Epistemology of ‘Recognition’: Axel Honneth.”

⁶⁴ Bauman, Globalization : The Human Consequences.

⁶⁵ Aiden and McCarthy, Current Attitudes towards Disabled People; Ankestyrelsen and Det Centrale Handicapråd, Befolkningens holdninger og handlinger i relation til personer med handicap : rapport; Staniland and Office for Disability Issues, ‘Public Perceptions of Disabled People : Evidence from the British Social Attitudes Survey 2009’.

⁶⁶ Nario-Redmond, Ableism : The Causes and Consequences of Disability Prejudice.

⁶⁷ Nario-Redmond, 193.

⁶⁸ Goodley, Disability Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, 23.

⁶⁹ Kristensen, “Tilioq Samler Interessenter Om Handicappolitik.”

⁷⁰ Harpur, ‘Embracing the New Disability Rights Paradigm: The Importance of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’, 11.

⁷¹ Asprey and Nash, “‘The Importance of Awareness and Communication for the Inclusion of Young People with Life-Limiting and Life-Threatening Conditions in Mainstream Schools and Colleges; Ison et al., ‘“Just like You”: A Disability Awareness Program for Children That Enhanced Knowledge, Attitudes, and Acceptance: Pilot Study Findings’; Lindsay and Mcpherson, ‘Strategies for Improving Disability Awareness and Social Inclusion of Children and Young People with Cerebral Palsy’; Scior et al., ‘Stigma, Public Awareness about Intellectual Disability and Attitudes to Inclusion among Different Ethnic Groups.”