What is Ablenationalism? Anastasia Todd

Joeita Gupta:
I am Joeita Gupta, and this is The Pulse. In 1983, Benedict Anderson published his book, Imagined Communities. In it, he discusses nationalism and the nation. He hypothesized that the nation was a socially constructed community imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of the group. While Anderson focused on print capitalism, subsequent scholarship has developed the idea of the nation and who belongs in it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, though no doubt insidiously, the citizens of this Imagined Community were often coded as able-bodied. Complex technologies of rehabilitation were brought to bear on citizens to ensure that all body-minds conform with the able-bodied norm. Getting disabled bodies and minds to, "Fit in," was part of the national project. Today, we discuss disability and able nationalism. It's time to put your finger on the pulse.
Hello, and welcome to The Pulse on AMI-audio. I'm Joeita Gupta. I'm really glad you're joining us again for another episode of The Pulse. If you have found our programming interesting, if you want to be notified about future videos, please don't forget to like or subscribe to this channel. We upload new videos once a week. And if you subscribe, you will know every time we drop a new video. And of course, it goes without saying, but I'll say it, please also tell your friends, your families, and your colleagues to sign up as well so that more people have a chance to listen to some of the great content we produce on this channel. My guest today is Anastasia Todd, who is Assistant Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Kentucky. Her article, Affective Able Nationalisms and Interspecies Entanglements, was recently published in Disability Studies Quarterly. Anastasia, hello and welcome to the program. I'm really delighted you could join us today.

Anastasia Todd:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Joeita Gupta:
Now, you must tell me if I'm saying this wrong, but what is able nationalisms?

Anastasia Todd:
Yeah, you're saying it correctly. That's a great question. So, it is basically a theory that looks at the ways in which certain disabled people get folded into the nation-state. So, specifically in this article, I'm looking at how a specific disabled person who is a veteran is brought back into the national fold via his service dog.

Joeita Gupta:
And so, you're talking about a story that popped up on YouTube. Describe in a little more detail about the YouTube video and what was shown in it. And also what sort of a reception it got when it landed on YouTube.

Anastasia Todd:
So, I'll just say a little bit too about how I got started doing this specific research. So, I started this research back in 2016. So, this YouTube video was on the Today Show, which is like a morning talk new show in the US. And when I first was writing about this specific video, I was juxtaposing it with another story of a service dog and a person who, unfortunately, was killed by the police. But this specific video that I'm writing about is basically like a montage video of someone named Trevor Maroshek, who was a former Navy SEAL. And he is shown with his service dog, who was a military dog. So, his service dog was instrumental, I guess, in his ability to return to civilian life.
And so, the video that I'm analyzing in this article is a montage of Trevor and Chopper, his service dog. And they are doing things that people do with their dogs. He is surfing with Chopper. He's with his family with Chopper. He's taking Chopper on a walk. But the thing that was really intriguing to me about this video was that he also is shown recounting his life on the battlefield with Chopper. Because before Chopper was his service dog, he was his canine partner. And so, there were images or I guess scenes in this video of him and Chopper doing what they did on the battlefield, so doing certain tactical maneuvers.
And the video itself was actually an advertisement for a Smithsonian documentary that was made about Trevor and Chopper. So, it was like a news piece, but then also an advertisement for a larger documentary. And what struck me as super interesting about this... And I was already writing about and thinking about service dogs prior to writing about this specific case. But what was so interesting to me was not only was Chopper Trevor's service dog, but he was his former canine partner. So, the juxtaposition of living your life with a service dog, but then also having this added layer of Chopper being a military dog was something that was super intriguing to me.
And the response was also something that was really interesting because in the YouTube comments... So, a lot of my work is on... I do media studies work, so I look a lot at social media. And one way that I really try to think about social media is through the comments, how people are reacting to what they're seeing, or what they're experiencing, what they're hearing. And so, a lot of the comments were very much in support of Chopper, but so much so that people were like, "Chopper is my hero. Chopper is such a lovable dog." And it was just very interesting because obviously, in the US people venerate our veterans. In the comments, it was really this veneration for Chopper, for the dog.

Joeita Gupta:
If we can take a bit of a detour, I know that there's a great deal of fascination with service animals now. But if you look back in history, for how long have we been reliant on service dogs? How far back does that relationship actually go?

Anastasia Todd:
Yeah, that's a great question. So, in this article and in my research on service dogs, I really look at the development of seeing-eye dogs and their proliferation during World War I. And that's when an industry popped up where folks were training dogs for veterans. So, in this article, I speak about how post World War I, there was this industry of seeing eye dog training facilities that were training dogs for veterans. But in the research that has been done on service dogs, dogs and humans have been in these helping partnerships for centuries. There are some people that have written about these partnerships going back to, I don't even know, way, way, way longer, but they weren't necessarily considered to be service dogs or assistance animals. It's been a phenomenon that has existed for many, many, many centuries.

Joeita Gupta:
Well, this whole idea of dog being man's best friend has got to have come from somewhere. So, it's no wonder it goes back as far as it has. In the article, you refer to Chopper specifically, but service dogs in general as a technology of rehabilitation. What do you mean by that?

Anastasia Todd:
When I was thinking about how Chopper has become valuable. So, my article is not only how disabled body-minds become reinvigorated with value, but also thinking about why is Chopper considered to be such a valuable dog? And so, I was thinking a lot about rehabilitation. So, this idea that body-minds, disabled body-minds can be brought back to what we think of as normal or whole again through various technologies. And so, when I'm thinking about something like a wheelchair, I write a little bit in the article about how another scholar of disability studies, Kelly Frisch, writes about how the wheelchair is a technology of rehabilitation. So, post World War I, there was a lot of investment, especially in Canada into wheelchairs for veterans in order to make veterans mobile again in order to fold them back into economies through allowing them to work.
And so, I thought a lot about what kind of work is the service dog doing in a very similar vein. And so, when I was thinking about Chopper specifically and thinking about the video, the Today Show video, I was really honing in on how the service dog is operating in a similar way. So, how is the service dog being used or utilized as a technology that allows veterans to fold back into a different economy? So, thinking about how it allows veterans to work again. Or specifically in terms of this article, I was looking into how Chopper has allowed Trevor to become a family man. So, thinking about how he's folded back into the white American nuclear family via his dog. And so, when I'm thinking about a technology of rehabilitation, I'm thinking about something that's allowing this disabled body mind to be brought closer back to what we think of as, "Able."

Joeita Gupta:
And of course, we are talking today about able nationalism and how this is in this technology of rehabilitation, might be serving the perpetuation of the nation-state. If you can, can you make the connection for us? So, how does utilizing Chopper or the story of Chopper in this way facilitate the nation-state, if you will?

Anastasia Todd:
Yeah, that's a great question. So, it's interesting because my research is about girlhood and disability. And so, I write a lot about disabled childhood. And so, when I was writing about this topic, I was thinking about veterans and disabled children are the most, "Sympathetic," disabled people. And so, I was thinking about how do these representations work in terms of shoring up some narrative about the US? Why do all of these commenters on YouTube seem to be in love with Chopper and Trevor? When at the same time, we know that in the US, disabled people have been considered to be disposable for various reasons. But disabled people in the US, legally, they can make less money. They are streamlined into special education, which is not a very equitable education system for people.
And so, I was just thinking why are some disabled people considered to be valuable, inspirational, et cetera? And so, when I was thinking more about the story of Chopper and Trevor, I was thinking about how Chopper is not only valued because he is bringing Trevor back to this more able-minded, able-bodied norm, but also the fact that he was a Navy SEAL dog. And so, when I was thinking about Chopper's role and his veneration as a Navy SEAL dog, and I was looking more into the comments, I was seeing how so many people were applauding Chopper as a national hero.
And that made me think about the dog's historic role in securing the nation-state. So, when we're thinking about military dogs and their role in US nationalism, we can see how the dog has been used for a long time to not only secure, "Our national borders and the military," but also how the police dog has been used to secure, for example, the white nuclear family from the, "Other." And so, I was thinking a lot about how in the comments, people were talking about how Chopper isn't just valued because he was a service dog, but he's valued because he is able to secure the home and secure the family in somewhat violent ways. So, there's one commenter that I talk about who talks about their own service dog, and how they feel very protected by their service dog because their dog is willing to attack people, like home invaders.
And so, I was making this connection between the dog as someone securing the domestic space and the dog as someone who has secured our national border, specifically in the war on terror. Because Chopper was deployed during the war on terror. There's a whole bunch of stories about Chopper, I guess, protecting Trevor and protecting other service members from, "Terrorists." So, there's a lot of stories about how Chopper was instrumental in various scenes of battle, very violent and visceral descriptions of Chopper attacking, "Terrorists."
And so, I was just making this connection between Chopper securing not only the white domestic space of Trevor's home and his family, but then also securing the US during a time when there was a perpetuation of the idea that the US needed to be secured from people who were considered to be terrorists, considered to be the terrorist other. And so, it just really got me thinking about how the dog is a very multifaceted signifier of nationalism. So, thinking about how the dog is used in these military operations, not only materially, dogs are being sent out, but also in our minds like ideologically, the dog is used as a way to shore up this idea of a white nuclear family with a dog. It completes this family formation that we have in our mind.

Joeita Gupta:
That's right.

Anastasia Todd:
Yeah, that was a long answer to your question.

Joeita Gupta:
No, because the other piece around this is, this whole conversation about Trevor Maroshek and Chopper happens at a time when there are more and more people talking about the state of veteran mental health and a spike in suicides amongst veterans. How does the narrative about Chopper get taken up in the context of that larger discussion about veteran mental health and well-being?

Anastasia Todd:
Yeah. So, in this piece, I talk a lot about how the narrative that's perpetuated... Or I guess not perpetuated, but the narrative that's produced specifically within the Today Show video, perpetuates this really complicated, I guess, entanglement of affect and emotion in psychiatric disability and mental health. And so, in a lot of the narrative that's being produced in this video, we see that Chopper's role as a service dog, specifically a service dog for Trevor's PTSD. His role is really, I guess... What is the right word? His role is constructed as this... What I term in this article, and I'm using it from another scholar, but Chopper is constructed as a love machine. And so, what I mean by that is that in the actual video and in news articles about Chopper, his role as a service dog is really defined as teaching Trevor Maroshek how to love again.
And so, it really flattens psychiatric disability or mental disability to this idea of not being able to love, not being able to feel your emotions in the right way. And so, it really depoliticizes the way in which Maroshek has acquired his disability. So, instead of thinking about like war, the war on terror, or military-industrial complex as being a space that disables people. Instead, the relationship between Chopper and Maroshek is just constructed as one. That's a common sense dog-human relationship where the love of the dog is something that's going to, "Cure," the human.

Joeita Gupta:
I thought you were going to say, because this also, it's a fantastic quote from the article where you say that Chopper is constructed as a savior on the leash. But in actual fact, and you talk about this towards the end of your piece. And I can also corroborate this, having talked to many people who own service dogs, the relationship isn't actually all that one-sided. And there's a great deal of cooperation and reciprocity in the relationship between a service animal and the person that they're working with or their handler. In what ways does that reciprocity come across in the relationship between Trevor Maroshek and Chopper?

Anastasia Todd:
Yeah, that's also a really great question. So, in a lot of the other research that I've done about service dogs and specifically disabled girl handlers, there's a very similar narrative where the dog is a savior on the leash, the dog is the last resort for a normative life for the disabled handler. And other people who are disability studies scholars and disabled people who write about their relationship with the service dog really pushed back on that very flat idea that the service dog is something that's going to, "Cure," them, or the service dog is just there for its utility.
And it's really a more complicated back-and-forth relationship between the dog and the handler. And in the case of Chopper and Trevor Maroshek, there are stories that I was reading about how when Trevor first came back from being deployed, he actually was unable to bring Chopper with him. And he had to fight for Chopper to be brought back to the US. The reason why Chopper ended up being Trevor's service dog was because he petitioned for him to be brought back to the US as his service dog.
And another thing that gave more depth and nuance to the story of these two was the fact that after... I can't remember exactly how many years old he was, but Chopper did end up becoming disabled when he was older. And there were different news articles that spoke about how Trevor Maroshek ended up caring for Chopper in his later years, providing Chopper with various mobility devices. And to me, it illustrated this ambivalent relationship. So, this idea that Chopper and Maroshek were, I guess, simultaneously tools of US imperialism. But also they cultivated this relationship out of violence. And yeah. So, it was just this added layer of reciprocity and interdependence that they really shared that is not the mainstream narrative about their relationship.

Joeita Gupta:
The reason your article was so fascinating to me is because it does say something about how we perceive the relationship between service dogs or service animals and their handlers. And the logics that are brought to bear on that relationship, where certain things get emphasized and other things get left out of the telling. What do you think are the real-world implications of some of your findings and some of your thinking about the relationship between service dogs being seen as saviours, or in the case of Chopper, also the added layer of having a military dog that has shored up the boundaries of the nation? What are the real-world implications for people who own service dogs? Because many will tell you that there's a great deal of confusion about the rights of people with service dogs, and where they can go, and where they're not allowed. So, when you bring the conversation out of the realm of abstract theory maybe, and you talk about the implications for real people with service animals, what do you think those are?

Anastasia Todd:
Yeah, I have actually a good little anecdote. But first I'll just say I think that the problem we see here is that what is being created is these certain ideals of service dogs, what they look like, how they act. And Margaret Price has a great article called What's a Service Animal? I think. And she talks about this, about how especially able-bodied people, or in our ableist world, we have an idea of what a service dog looks like. And a lot of times that's not what a service dog looks like. And so, when a service dog doesn't look or act like what we expect a service dog to look or act like, that means that usually, the disabled handler is the one who's going to get questioned, is going to get denied entry into spaces. And it creates these hierarchies that are not questioned.
But I think another thing that's really interesting is thinking about how service dogs are widely loved in a lot of senses because people love dogs. But this is a story about that. So, really quickly, on my campus at the University of Kentucky, there is a program where people can train service dogs or they socialize them. They socialize service dogs through a nonprofit. And so, there are a bunch of people who are socializing service dogs on campus. And I teach a disability studies class at UK. And so, we talk about service dogs. We have a whole unit where we talk about service dogs. I ask my students in my class, I ask them, how difficult do you think it is to get a service dog? Everyone in the class is always like, "It's not difficult at all. They're everywhere. We see them everywhere. It must be super easy to get a service dog." And I have to say, no, actually, it's really difficult.

Joeita Gupta:
That wouldn't have been my answer.

Anastasia Todd:
Yeah, it is really difficult. The service dogs you see everywhere are dogs that are being socialized. Those aren't people who are using the dogs. And so, students will get a little bit like, "Oh, okay. I didn't realize that. I didn't realize that." And so, I think when we have a proliferation of dogs and people love dogs, people have this idea that ableism is over. We have these service dogs everywhere for disabled people, it's not that hard to get a dog. When in reality, it is extremely difficult to get a dog if you're not a veteran or if you're not a child. Service dogs on average cost about $25,000 trained.
And there's still so much discrimination that disabled people with service dogs face, because people don't believe that service dogs are real, or service dogs are legitimate mobility or technologies of rehabilitation, if we want to call them that. But also, I think that just the confusion that's being perpetuated by folks not really understanding what a service dog's role is, just really harms disabled people who use service dogs. When we have a misunderstanding about the role of the service dog, when we have a misunderstanding about this idea that service dogs really can look anyway, then really the people who are harmed are not even just the disabled people who use their service dogs, but the service dogs as well.

Joeita Gupta:
Anastasia Todd, we've got to leave it there. Thank you very much for joining me today on the program.

Anastasia Todd:
Thank you.

Joeita Gupta:
Anastasia Todd is assistant professor of gender and women studies at the University of Kentucky. That's all the time we have for today. Please write us with your feedback atfeedback@ami.ca or find us at on Twitter @AMI-audio. Use the #PulseAMI. This week, The Pulse was brought to you by the following people. A videographer is Ted Cooper, video editor is Jordan Steeves. Marc Aflalo is our technical producer. Ryan Delehanty is the coordinator for podcasts at AMI-audio. And Andy Frank is the manager for AMI-audio. And I've been your host, Joeita Gupta. Thanks so much for listening.