Van pioniers tot partners

De trainingspraktijk en aan de eerste blindengeleidehondenscholen (1916-1939)

Samenvatting

Guide dogs have been part of human history for a long time, but only were trained systematically at special guide dog schools from 1916 onwards. In guide dog training, issues of dependency, agency and materiality come together that play a role in both disability and animal history, making it productive to combine both fields. I use praxiography to answer the question how visual disability was enacted in the specific practices of guide dog training from 1916 until 1939 in Germany, at The Seeing Eye and in the Netherlands. The attribution of agency over the three main actors I study, and therefore how visual disability was enacted,

shifted over the course of the interbellum. From a passive presence, the visually impaired

person became an active participant of guide dog training. Visual disability came to be an

obstacle to overcome instead of a fact of life to work around.