CFP: Children’s relationships, embodied social capital and disability: connecting scales of inclusion and exclusion.

Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK.

10.00am – 5.00pm, 9^th July 2013

Keynote speaker:  Professor Gill Valentine

Panel members include: Professor Deborah Youdell, Professor Janice McLaughlin

This one day conference is an end of project event. The project has explored how children’s social relationships play a part in processes of inclusion and exclusion in contemporary schooling. The research has examined how children’s everyday practices in school, home and leisure spaces creates embodied social capital, (re)producing disability as an identifier that that intersects with other ‘axes of power’ (e.g. class, gender, ethnicity) to reproduce or transform enduring material inequalities.

Findings illuminate issues such as: the significance of relationships to school and social inclusion, hierarchies of accepted identities, structural factors (e.g. transport, support networks, leisure activity provision), interventions made in children’s relationships, the role of special schools, and methodological approaches.

Further information about the project is available at the project website: http://socialcapital.lboro.ac.uk.webhost1.lboro.ac.uk/home/

We would especially like to invite parents, children and young people, policy makers, and researchers of education, children and youth, geography, sociology and disability studies to participate in this event.

The conference will include a keynote speech by Professor Gill Valentine, presentation of project findings, panel discussions, and workshops. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come-first served basis.  Please confirm attendance.

Deadline for registration: 8th May. Email lboroconference2013@gmail for enquiries and registration.

Disability Studies @ University of Sheffield Seminar: Meanings of an ‘autistic’ sexual subjectivity

Disabilityuos Seminar
12 – 1.30, April 17th 2013
Room 7.02, Education Building, University of Sheffield 388 Glossop Road
Hanna Bertilsdotter-Rosqvist
Umeå UniversitySE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden

Meanings of an ‘autistic’ sexual subjectivity- narratives of love, sexuality and couplehood on people with autism´s own terms within the Swedish autistic self-advocacy movement

Abstract: In research on sexuality and developmental disabilities three discourses dominates: the sexual restriction/regulation discourse, the sexual education discourse and a sexual political discourse. Perspectives on sexuality, couplehood and autism are gradually changing in Sweden. Through this change people with autism are gradually being included within a discourse of “good enough sexuality” on certain conditions (sexuality based on twosome, monogamous love). The present paper explores discourses within the Swedish autistic self-advocacy movement of an ‘autistic’ sexuality and couplehood (sexuality and couplehood on people with autism´s own terms). The analyses is based on articles in a Swedish magazine, Empowerment, published between 2002-2009, produced by and aimed at adults with autism. The stories in the magazine Empowerment can be seen as expressing an emergent counter-hegemonic conditional discourse of “good enough sexuality” which regards some people with autism as “good enough” sexual subjects and possible sexual and romantic partners.

Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist is an Associate Professor in Sociology and Research Fellow in Sociology and Gender studies at Umeå University, Sweden. She now holds a position as senior lecturer at the Department or Social Work, Umeå university. Her research interests include autism politics and identity constructions among adults with autism. Other areas of interest are homonormativity, representations of bisexuality, and intersecting notions of age, space and sexuality.

Reminder: next DRF seminar 14th March starring Mitzi Waltz and Jonathan Harvey

A quick reminder that the next DRF will be on Thursday 14th March, 2pm-4pm in Arundel 10111. After the seminar many of us will be making our way up to the University of Sheffield for Dan Goodley’s inaugural lecture at The University of Sheffield (more details here - please note the separate locations of these two events). Presenting this month will be:

Slot 1: Mitzi Waltz (Sheffield Hallam University, UK): Autism and Economic Disempowerment

Slot 2: Jonathan Harvey (The Open University, UK) Insider/outsider status: negotiating the complexity of life

See here for more details (and scroll down to March).

Venue: The seminar will be held in the Arundel Building, 122 Charles Street, City Campus, Sheffield Hallam University, S1 1WB.  For a map of City Campus click here.

If you, or anybody you know, would like to present at a DRF seminar please do get in touch.  Alternatively, let us know if there is an issue/article/book you’d like to facilitate a round table discussion on.

Even if you do not intend to present, feel free to come along, listen and share your thoughts.   For lunchtime slots, please feel free to bring your own food and drink.

We aim to be accessible and have produced some guidelines of which we would like presenters to be mindful – these can be accessed here: Accessible Presenting

To offer to present, facilitate a discussion or for more detailed access information please contact: Rebecca Mallett: r.mallett@shu.ac.uk or 0114 225 4669 or Jenny Slater: j.slater@shu.ac.uk or 0114 225 6691.

Call for Papers: ‘Time for Change? Child, Youth, Family and Disability Conference’, MMU

‘TIME FOR CHANGE?’ CHILD, YOUTH, FAMILY AND DISABILITY CONFERENCE: CALL FOR PAPERS

Elizabeth Gaskell Campus, Manchester Metropolitan University, Hathersage Road, Manchester, UK, M13 0JA

10.30 – 4.00pm, 18^th & 19^th June, 2013

The aim of the conference is to provide a space for disabled children, young people, family members and allies(including practitioners) to share their ideas, knowledge and expertise and to celebrate disabled children and young people’s lives.  We would like to invite disabled children, young people, their parents and carers (we would like to include people with physical, sensory and cognitive impairments as well as those people with mental health issues), as well as activists and academics in the field of disability studies and childhood studies to present at and to attend the event.  This year’s conference theme is ‘Time for Change?’  We are inviting contributors to talk about changes in the lives of children, young people and their families and suggest that you might like to address some of the following questions:

• what has changed?
•  how have you been involved in changing lives?
• what changes would you like to see?
• what are the barriers to and opportunities for change?

Day One will include accessible presentations and discussion points as well as opportunities to take part in workshop activities (further details to follow).

Day Two will include more formal presentations but we will particularly welcome presentations or discussion papers that tell a story, share a skill, some information or research in ways that try to be as accessible and creative as possible – for example, that use a range of presentations styles and media including photography, video and artwork.

Registration

To book your place visit: http://cyfd2013.eventbrite.co.uk

We ask that you please register, stating any access requirements, two weeks before the event.

Presenting

Please send us a short description of the ideas for your presentation by 10^th May, 2013.

Travel & Parking

Travel information available at: http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/travel/gaskell/

Parking is not available at Gaskell (except for blue badge holders) but there are car parks nearby, or catch the 147 bus from Piccadilly Station, ask for the Hathersage Road stop.

Refreshments

PLEASE NOTE: as this is a FREE event, we will not be providing refreshments.  Please bring your own or it will be possible to purchase food at the campus refectory.

Contact

For more information please contact: K.Runswick-Cole@mmu.ac.uk or 0161 247 2906.

Reminder of the next DRF themed seminar: Youth and Disability, Wednesday 9th Jan, 12-2

A reminder that the next DRF seminar will be on Wednesday 9^th January 2013 12pm-2pm in Arundel 10111.The theme of this seminar is ‘Youth and Disability’.

Slot 1: Jenny Slater (Department of Education, Childhood and Inclusion, Sheffield Hallam University, UK): “You’re not, I mean… I know you’re not, but I have to ask, you’re not… sexually active, are you?” Youth, disability, sexuality.

Abstract:

The quote I use to frame this paper comes out of my PhD research with young disabled people. It captures the troubled and troubling response that Molly, a young disabled woman, received from a doctor when requesting the contraceptive pill on sporting grounds. Furthermore, it illustrates the dangerous tying of disability to a discourse of asexuality; a discourse which works to sustain the positioning of disabled people’s bodies as a) childlike (Hall, 2011), b) asexual (Garland-Thomson, 2002; Liddiard, 2012), and c) the property of others, to be subject to intervention (Barton, 1993; McCarthy, 1998). For young disabled people, particularly young women, this is dangerous. In this paper I share more stories from my fieldwork in order to work through messy discourses of youth, disability and sexuality.  I use these stories to question Disability Studies and, to a lesser extent, popular media normalisation of issues concerning disability, disabled youth, gender and sexuality, stressing the importance of transdisciplinary conversation.

Slot 2: Ezekiel Isanda Oweya: (Centre for Rehabilitation Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa): Experiences of African disabled youth living in rural Rift Valley to find and sustain livelihoods

 

Venue: The seminar will be held in the Arundel Building, 122 Charles Street, City Campus, Sheffield Hallam University, S1 1WB.  For a map of City Campus click here.

If you, or anybody you know, would like to present at a DRF seminar please do get in touch.  Alternatively, let us know if there is an issue/article/book you’d like to facilitate a round table discussion on.

Even if you do not intend to present, feel free to come along, listen and share your thoughts.   For lunchtime slots, please feel free to bring your own food and drink.

We aim to be accessible and have produced some guidelines of which we would like presenters to be mindful – these can be accessed here: Accessible Presenting

To offer to present, facilitate a discussion or for more detailed access information please contact: Rebecca Mallett: r.mallett@shu.ac.uk or 0114 225 4669 or Jenny Slater: j.slater@shu.ac.uk or 0114 225 6691.

Event: Disability and the Victorians: Confronting Legacies Conference (July/Aug 2012, UK)

Title: Disability and the Victorians: Confronting Legacies (Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies Conference)

Dates: 30^th July-1^st August 2012

Place: Leeds Trinity University College, UK 

Description: The nineteenth century was the period during which disability was conceptualised, categorised, and defined. The industrial revolution, advances in medicine, the emergence of philanthropy and the growth of asylums all played their part in creating what today’s society describes as the medical model of disability. Disability can be traced through many forms: in material culture and literary genres; scientific, medical and official inquiries; art; architecture; the history of disabled charities; disabled people’s experiences; the legacy inherited by disabled people today of the taxonomies and categories of disability – the ‘handicapped’; the ‘deaf and dumb’; the ‘feeble minded’; the blind; the ‘imbecile’ the ‘idiot’ and the ‘cretin’ — the legacy of the relationship between the body, the visual, the scientific and the literary text; the intersection of disability, theories of evolution, the emergence of the disciplines of statistics, social sciences and anthropology, eugenics and degeneration.

This conference seeks to address conceptualisations of disability in the Victorian period and their legacy(ies); the ways in which we can draw disabled voices and testimonies together to construct ‘the long view’, the intersection of disability studies and Victorian studies, and the conceptual, disciplinary, and pedagogical issues that arise as a consequence of this research. 

Themes will include:

• Resistance/conformity: subversion, transgression, agency and constraint.
• The visibility and invisibility of disability: beggars, street sellers, hawkers, freak shows and circuses.
• Victorian institutions: charities, asylums, schools and clubs.
• Normalising practices: definitions, constructions, categories and taxonomies.
• Victorian technologies: assistive and medical.
• The emergence of specialisms: from audiology to psychiatry.
• Disability as a moral force for improvement: theology and spiritual enlightenment/development, literature and the school of pain.
• The formation of Victorian identities: nation, empire, ‘race’.
• Disability and the fear of loss: national efficiency, eugenics and ‘degeneration’.
• Medical and cultural histories: medical illustration and advertising, the relationship between the literary, the medical and the scientific text.
• Acts: Victorian social policy and legal frameworks.
• Work: employment, employability, the regulated employment and non-employment of disabled people
• The spaces of disability: art, architecture, environment.
• Pedagogy: teaching about disability and disabled people in the Victorian period.
• Representing disability to non-specialist audiences: heritage interpretations, public histories, dictionaries.

This is an interdisciplinary conference, grounded in Victorian Studies, for which the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies, being established since 1994 and home of the Journal of Victorian Culture, has a longstanding and influential reputation. Within Victorian Studies, and the humanities more broadly, disability studies has emerging significance (e.g. Martha Stoddard Holmes, Fictions of Affliction (2006), Julia Miele Rodas, rev essay, Mainstreaming Disability Studies?’, Victorian Literature and Culture, 36/1 (2006), and the Special Issue on ‘Victorian Disability’ for the Victorian Review (Fall, 2009)). The aim of the conference is to bring these two interdisciplinary fields together.

As the history of disability has tended so far to focus on social constructions of disability, in part a reflection of the available sources, a key aim of the conference is to offer a new direction by addressing the experiences or testimonies of those who are disabled and by considering the long-term impact of such social constructions, in order to construct ‘the long view’.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers include:

• Joanne Woiak, Ph.D., Disability Studies Program, University of Washington;
• Professor Martha Stoddard Holmes, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Literature and Writing Studies, Cal State University San Marcos, USA, ‘Fictions of Affliction: Physical Disability in Victorian Culture’;
• Professor Vanessa Toulmin, Director of National Fairground Archive, National Fairground Archive (Western Bank Library) University of Sheffield.

Over fifty papers have been accepted for this three-day international event. There is also opportunity to visit the Thackray Medical Museum, for an object-handling session, and I am pleased to inform you that the programme for the above conference has now been published on our webpage here.

If you anticipate that the conference registration fee might cause you financial hardship, please contact the organisers.  Registration details are here.

Theorizing Normalcy and the Mundane 2011: A Conference Report

[thanks to DRF member Jenny Slater for this conference report]

Theorizing Normalcy and the Mundane: 2nd International conference

(14th-15th September 2011) by Jenny Slater

A memory: It is the night before Theorizing Normalcy and the Mundane 2010. I am in my third year of my undergraduate degree. Tomorrow, I’m going to a proper academic conference, with proper grown-up academics. “What the hell do people wear to conferences?” I ask my friend. “I dunno”, she answers, “maybe a suit or summit?” “you reckon? I don’t have anything like that!” I bumble something together, and hope nobody will notice the hole in the elbow of my ‘smart’ jumper. To my relief/surprise/delight, I didn’t have to worry as my first taste of a keynote speaker at an academic conference was someone whipping off his shirt to make a point about the diversity of bodies; nobody was looking at my holey jumper. Come forward 16 months, I’m now a PhD Student at MMU and fond memories of the 2010 conference meant my hopes for Theorizing Normalcy and the Mundane 2011 were high. It didn’t disappoint.

The conference kicked off with the DRF’s very own Rebecca Mallett warning us of the dangers of ‘buying new normals’ – a sentiment echoed later in the day by Alison Wilde in her paper, ‘Almost Normal?’. Rebecca issued us with a call to arms: we should be troubling normativity, rather than buying into new axes of normativity – a fitting start. The only downside to such a rich programme of speakers is the difficult decisions between parallel sessions. Getting my chairing and speaking duties out of the way early, however, my first choice was made for me and I attended the Child, Youth and Family session. Harriet Cooper was the first to take up Rebecca’s gauntlet, giving a fascinating paper detailing the late nineteenth century’s construction of the ‘normal child’ and using the example of Channel 4’s Born to be Different documentary series to argue the continuing prevalence of normativity in relation to childhood. James Rice followed. James’ paper detailed online message board responses to an interview with a pregnant disabled woman in Iceland and highlighted the normative assumptions that continue to surround conceptions of ‘the family’, stimulating much debate. I rounded the session up, taking inspiration from the recent exploration into commodification by Rebecca Mallett and Katherine Runswick-Cole, considering how the commodification of youth sits alongside socio-cultural constructions of disability. The last word of the session, however, went to John Rees as his call for uniting in struggle against the British Condemn Government (furthered in his brilliantly passionate paper the following day) seemed a fitting end to a thought provoking hour and a half.

Donna Reeve was next in the exciting line-up of all female keynote speakers. The numerous citations of Donna’s work in presentations throughout the conference, as well as in mid- and post-conference chat (especially by doctoral students and those newer to the world of Disability Studies) demonstrated to me the importance of Donna’s work on psycho-emotional disablism and internalized oppression (not that I needed convincing). As usual, Donna failed to disappoint. At the crux of Donna’s argument was that the perception that the impaired body is outside the realms of normativity forces it to centre stage: therefore, we need to halt any impairment/disability dualities and instead include bodies in any theorisation of disability and impairment. A personal highlight for me came in the next session when Cassie Ogden was certainly successful in including ‘bodies’ in her musings. Declaring her love for all things messy (poo was number one, sex number two, but snot and menstrual blood also valid contenders), Cassie exposed the non-leaky body as a farce, highlighting how an expectation to control and hide everyday leakiness means those who do not/cannot/ refuse to mask their leakiness are deemed in possession of a failing body. Donna’s work is important here: Cassie highlighted that normalising, ‘civilising’ processes, such as denying leakiness, bring any (impaired) bodies not meeting this pseudo-norm sharply into focus – with likely consequences of psycho-emotional disablism and internalized oppression.

Rounding off day one was another brilliant keynote, MMU’s Anat Greenstein. Using disability as a lens to build her vision (and fulfil her dream) of opening a democratic school, Anat talked about how disability and the experiences of disabled pupils have built her ideas of democratic pedagogy. Anat gave us a captivating insight into her playful methodology with pupils in a ‘special unit’ of a secondary school to teach us about ‘An Ideal World of Freaks and Unusual Women’. A fitting end to the day.

Day 2 began with fourth and final keynote, Fiona Kumari-Campbell. Fiona’s work on ableism and her call to theorise the ‘able body’ has been particularly influential to my own research (Kumari Campbell, 2009) and Fiona delivered a kick-in-the-balls to all that is ‘reasonable’ by questioning the role of reasonableness and normativity within law. Tying in nicely with the notion of ‘reasonableness’ was Katherine Runswick-Cole’s dismodernist critique of The Big Society later in the day – both alluding to the ableism inherent to the Neoliberal, ‘competent’, ‘capable’ and ‘independent’ citizen. Both papers (along with others) highlighted the timely urgency of questioning what appears as implicit and normal, and therefore acted out in everyday, mundane interactions (with oppressive and potentially fatal consequences) in an increasingly rightist and Neoliberal Britain. Furthermore, the transdiciplinary nature of the conference showed the importance of considering a medley of intersectional identities alongside disability in such debate.

The transdisciplinary feel meant ideas were brought in from wide ranging fields. Andrea Dermondy, for example, speaking from within thanatology spoke of broadening the concept of loss within Disability Studies. On this note, despite a long and packed two days, the last session I attended was possibly one of the most stimulating and enjoyable. Ryan Parrey seemed to effortlessly entwine personal anecdote with dense theory to praise the possibility of rethinking with disabilities emergence. This was followed by Jonathon Harvey arguing the importance of critically including personal narrative in analysis of disability; Liz Ellis introducing Rural Studies and tourism; and Hannah Morgan highlighting the missing disability perspective within Mobility Studies. ‘Mobility’ was the theme of a paper I was particularly sad to miss: disability activist Steve Graby’s ‘Wandering Minds: autism, psychogeography, public space and the ICD’. Having since read Steve’s paper, I now see why it was receiving so much praise: highlighting the pathologisation of behaviour carried out by disabled people that is otherwise considered ‘normal’ in non-disabled people, Steve asks us to consider the psychogeography of disability in order to “seek new and unexplored directions in disability research”. Theorising Normalcy and the Mundane 2011 certainly opened my eyes to numerous new and unexplored directions that will go on to impact upon my own disability research.

Disability, argues Rod Michalko (2010), offers “time  for normalcy, to develop self-understanding […] and this is f*****g cool”. Theorising Normalcy and the Mundane 2011 gave us, an international, transdiciplinary, disruptive bunch of delegates, a time to together explore, critique, wander through and wonder about normalcy and the mundane; to understand the oppressive and exclusionary characteristics of normativity and their manifestation in everyday, mundane actions and ways of being.  I don’t think I’d be alone in saying that this conference was pretty f*****g cool. See you all in Chester for Theorising Normalcy and the Mundane 2012 (details to be announced soon).

• Kumari Campbell, F. (2009). Contours of Ableism: The Production of Disability and Abledness. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Michalko, R. (2010). What’s Cool About Blindness? Disability Studies Quarterly, 30(3/4), http://www.dsq-sds.org/article/view/1296/1332.

Workshop on the Economies of Disease and Disability from Antiquity to the Middle Ages (December 2011, UK)

5th Annual Interdisciplinary Workshop: Economies of Disease and Disability from Antiquity to the Middle Ages 

Date: 3rd and 4th December 2011

Venue: University of Nottingham, UK

The ‘Disease, Disability and Medicine’ workshops have been a leading UK interdisciplinary forum for scholars working in a variety of disciplines and regions of Medieval Europe . For this year’s workshop we are inviting both scholars in Medieval Studies and Antiquity.

The topic for the 5th workshop is: ‘Economies of Disease and Disability from Antiquity to the Middle Ages’.

The current economic climate is seeing a renegotiation of the parameters of disability; similar renegotiations must have happened in previous centuries. This workshop will address the following: how did wealth and economy impact on the lives of impaired people, their families/carers and their dependants in Antiquity and Medieval Europe? We are inviting contributions from any discipline related to medical humanities.

Proposals are invited for any aspect of health and wealth, which may include the following topics:

• poverty and disability (is disability wealth-related?)
• definitions of disability
• benefits/ charity and charitable institutions for the impaired
• health economies
• the economic impact of epidemics
• the language of disability
• burial and wealth of the impaired
• work and status

We also welcome proposals applying contemporary models to medieval and antique evidence and vice versa.

Please send abstracts (no more than 500 words) to Dr Christina Lee: christina.lee@nottingham.ac.uk by 30th September 2011

For more information click here.

Final Few Places Available for… Interdisciplinary Disability Research Conference (July 2011)

Event: Postgraduate Disability Research: A Critical Space to Engage ~ An Interdisciplinary Disability Research conference

Date: Wednesday 13th July 2011

Venue: University of Warwick, UK

This one day conference is sponsored by the British Sociological Association as part of a series of events for postgraduate students. Internationally renowned academics Professor Dan Goodley, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Professor Carol Thomas, Lancaster University, have been confirmed as keynote speakers.

Why a postgraduate critical disability studies conference?

In concluding his ground-breaking work mapping the terrain for critical disability studies, Goodley (2011 p.157) asserts: ‘while critical disability studies might start with disability, they never end with it’. Whilst the journey might be less linear than is suggested, along the way ‘intersections’ are encountered and engineered which ‘connect disability studies with other important agendas of class, feminist, queer and postcolonial studies’ (p.157). The literature and debates surrounding disability are expanding and diversifying, and yet these flows are happening against economic, social and policy backdrops which serve to further challenge the potentials for change.  There is then, ever more, a need to open up spaces for transdisciplinary debate about the position and future(s) of critical disability studies.  Postgraduate students addressing and engaging with these issues and debates are at the vanguard of this work.

Critical disability studies is an emerging subfield within the UK, but collective and collaborative spaces within which to explore and interrogate its options are infrequently opened up.  This conference brings together postgraduate students and disability activists from many parts of the UK and beyond to explore some of the key questions which connect to the embrace of a critical perspective to disability research.  In particular, what kinds of critical disability researchers might we ‘be’ and how should critical disability studies research be ‘done’? 

How can I get involved?

The event will also see the launch of a postgraduate disability research network, Critical Disability Space, which will provide a critical space for postgraduates on a longer term basis.

Please see our new website for more details including a draft programme of the event.

If you are interested in attending please contact the conference organisers, Kirsty Liddiard and Simon Blake at criticaldisabilityspace@gmail.com before the end of Wednesday 6^th July 2011.  Spaces are now extremely limited so please contact as as soon as possible.

Cost: Please note that the event is free to attend for British Sociological Association members (membership costs £35.00 for one year and gets you free access to many other events) and £25.00 for non-members.

Click here for more information or contact the organisers: Kirsty Liddiard k.liddiard@warwick.ac.uk (University of Warwick) and Simon Blake lqxsb2@nottingham.ac.uk (University of Nottingham)

Reminders of next DRF Seminar and *Theorizing Normalcy and the Mundane* abstract submission deadline

The next DRF Seminar #7 *FREE!* is on Thursday 12th May 2011: 1pm-3pm 

Venue: Room 10111 (First Floor) Arundel Building, Charles Street, City Campus, Sheffield Hallam University, S1 1WB 

Programme:

• “Imagined Possibilities: exploring teachers’ perspectives on factors influencing the educational opportunities for children with the label of autism in a mainstream school context.”~ Sue Chantler (Department of Education, Childhood and Inclusion, Sheffield Hallam University):

In this research study for my professional doctorate I worked with a group of primary school teachers to examine their reflections on the factors which influence the educational opportunities for children with the label of autism in a mainstream school context. The focus for this seminar will be on what emerges on working with the data, including some reflection by the researcher on her chosen methodology.

• “A visible / invisible identity” ~ Erin Pritchard (Department of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University):

It can be argued that disability is viewed as homogenous where by non-disabled individuals are unaware of the various disabilities that exist, instead having a stereotypical view of disability and therefore effecting who counts as disabled. I want to show how stereotypes of disability and representations of dwarfs construct a misleading view of dwarfism, often not being regarded as a disability which in turn causes social problems and problems of identity. Although dwarfism is a very visible disability which attracts a lot of negative attention it is not often viewed as a disability by both disabled and non-disabled people due to what is regarded and seen as a disability by them. Using the social model of disability and recent interviews that I have conducted with dwarfs this paper seeks to demonstrate how dwarfism is a disability constructed by an unaccommodating built environment and by an attitudinal environment.

We will be drawing up the schedule for 2011-2012 in due course ~ if you, or anybody you know, would like to present at a future DRF seminar please contact Rebecca Mallett on r.mallett@shu.ac.uk. Alternatively, let us know if there is an issue/article/book you’d like to facilitate a round table discussion on.  

And a reminder… the deadline for submitting abstracts for the*FREE!* Critical Disability Studies Conference *Theorizing Normalcy and the Mundane* Conference 2011 (14th – 15th September 2011) is rapidly approaching (22nd May) – for more information see the original post here