Call for papers – Intersectional Approaches to Disability and Race

Flipped webinar: 9 July 2020

Deadline abstracts: 28 February 2021

Recent times have emphasised again how society is marked by the interconnectedness of racism and ableism. Black and brown disabled and non-disabled people and white disabled and non-disabled people face different barriers and norms and have different disability and race experiences and expressions in terms of, for instance, social inequalities, time, social relations, ideology, everyday experiences, space, institutions, fiction, story telling, and performativity. While the intersectional exploration of disability and race is a small but growing area of study, this intersection has received insufficient attention in disability studies, in race studies as well as in intersectionality studies. Intersectional knowledge construction around the interrelatedness of race and disability and racism and ableism, and which rejects the medical or deficiency model of disability, is urgent.

The Intersectional Disability and Neurodiversity Reading Groups seek to contribute to this growing body of work by organising the flipped webinar Intersectional Approaches to Disability and Race (see below for an explanation of how a flipped webinar works). We invite scholars, postgraduate researchers, community activists and others to present on the junction of disability and ableism and race and racism, as well as their interrelatedness with other social categories. Abstracts can be in any of the following or other topics:

● Positionality: disability and race critical reflexivity

● Critical race theory, disability and art

● Disability and race in unconscious bias

● Access, expectations and detention in education

● The role of neurodiversity in racial profiling and the prison industrial complex

● Representations and the (traditional and online) media

● Whiteness, ableism and reproductive rights

● ‘British’ norms, white hegemony and independent living

● Queer, crip and decolonial subjectivities

● Islamophobia, Prevent and the dis/abled bodymind

● Race, interdependence and cultures of care

● The charity model of disability in policy and international development

● Disabled refugees and the ‘bona fide migrant’

● Intersectional invisibilisation and marginalisation in racial justice and disability justice movements

● Racialised heteronormativity in thinking about disabled families

● Abled whiteness in making sense of ageing

● Race and disability outside the limits of the LGBTQIA+ imagination

● Racialised norms, linguistic barriers and cultural inaccessibility

● Feminist leadership: organising different disability and race futures

● The scrounger narrative: race, disability and poverty

● White and abled norms in thinking about social change

● Emerging methodologies in disability and race research

● Experiencing and resisting ableism and racism in the pandemic

● Not counting: the statistics of the intersectional absence of disability and race

● Nothing about us, without us: empowerment from the racialised disabled and disabled racialised margins

● Black Lives Matter, disability and community

● Intersectional understandings of hate crime

● Fantasising about disability and race in arts, comics and performances

This is a neurodivergent-led and disabled-led webinar, and neurodivergent and disabled graduate students and scholars, activists and community-members, as well as others presenting from marginalised perspectives, are particularly encouraged to submit an abstract.

How does a ‘flipped webinar’ work?

The traditional format of a webinar is that a few people present their work through a video-platform – often with powerpoint slides. Instead, in a ‘flipped webinar’ each participant submits a short video or written blog post some time before the webinar (find the guidelines and the timeline below). These video and written blog posts will be uploaded online. Panellists as well as the audience will have time to read and watch the blog posts before the webinar.

At the start of the webinar, the facilitator will read the prepared summary of the main argument of the blog posts. The rest of the webinar will be dedicated to a facilitated conversation: panellists can comment on and discuss each other’s blog posts, ask each other questions, as well as respond to questions from the audience.

How does the submission process work?

This webinar has a phased submission process. There are two ways to do this:

1. Those who would like to receive some support can submit an abstract-in-progress first, before they submit their actual abstract. They can also submit a blog-post-in-progress first, before they submit their actual blog post. The organising team can discuss these works-in-progress and provide comments for improvement.

2. Those who feel comfortable submitting a completed abstract and blog post, can do so at the respective final deadline dates.

Timeline:

The timeline of the submission-process consists of four phases, with the following dates (all 11.59pm UK time):

1 February 2021: Deadline abstracts-in-progress (optional)

8 February 2021: The organising team returns comments on the abstracts-in-progress

1 March 2021: Deadline abstracts

15 March 2021: Decision abstracts

3 May 2021: Submission blog-posts-in-progress (optional)

17 May 2021: The organising team returns comments on the blog-posts-in-progress

21 June 2021: Submission final blog posts

1 July 2021: Blog posts are uploaded

1-8 July: Reading blog posts by panellists (and others)

9 July 2021: Webinar

Guidelines abstracts-in-progress and abstracts:

Information to include in your submission:

○ Name and email address

○ Blog post title

○ Abstract

○ Presentation type: written or video blog post

○ Department & university, organisation and/or community

○ Time zone

○ Access needs

○ Submission blog-post-in-progress?: yes / no

Abstract (pick one format):

○ Written length: 150-200 words

○ Spoken length: 2-3min

Point of attention:

○ Submissions do not rely on the medical or deficiency model of disability

○ Submissions use language and terms (e.g. identify-first or person-first language) appropriate to the context

Deadlines:

○ Abstracts-in-progress: 1 February 2021, 11.59pm UK time

○ Final submission abstract: 1 March 2021, 11.59pm UK time

Email your submission to: disabilityandracewebinar AT gmail.com

Guidelines video and written blog-posts-in-progress and blog posts

Blog post length (pick one):

○ Written blog post: 1000-1500wds

○ Video blog post: 9-12min

● Summary of the argument: 50-75 words (in addition to the blog post)

● Format: Arial 12 ● Referencing: use URLs [for example, see Post-Pandemic University]

Point of attention:

○ Submissions do not rely on the medical or deficiency model of disability

○ Submissions use language and terms (e.g. identify-first or person-first language) appropriate to the context

Email your submission to: disabilityandracewebinar AT gmail.com

Further information

Organisation: organising team Intersectional Disability & Neurodiversity Reading Groups

Email: disabilityandracewebinar AT gmail.com

Website: https://intersect-nd-dis-rg.wixsite.com/rg-site/calls

Reminder – 1st DRF session of 2020-21. Still time to sign up!

I’d like to invite you to join us for our first DRF event of 2020/21. Due to COVID-19 we are taking the DRF online and the event will be hosted through Microsoft Teams. If you would like to join us and hear these two brilliant talks please sign up on the eventbrite link below. You will receive an email on the morning of the event with the link to the session. Please do also get in touch if you have any access requirements that you want to make me aware of.

Look forward to seeing you all there!

Date: 30th November 2020

Time: 12-2pm

Pressenter 1 Name: Mette Westander

Presenter 2 Name: Adan Jerreat-Poole

To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/drf-seminar-series-event-1-tickets-124521110995

Talk 1 Title: Disability Discrimination faced by UCL students and Recommended Measures

Talk 2 Title: Digital Disabled: Micro Essays on Intimacy, Pain, and Technology

PhD Funding Opportunities in areas of LGBT+, Trans, Queer and/or Disability Studies

Sheffield Hallam University is currently advertising PhD scholarships, including two broadly in the areas of LGBT+, queer, trans and/or disability studies. Please share widely with those who might be interested and feel free to get in touch for an informal conversation.

The projects advertised are below. For more information about funding opportunities and applying for a PhD at Sheffield Hallam University, follow this link. For specific information on PhDs advertised within Sheffield Institute of Education (in which the successful candidate will be based), follow this link, and follow the page down to the bottom to find the linked PDF with project details (those outlined below are projects 10 and 11 on the PDF).

1. Research in the areas of queer, trans and disability studies 

For further information, or informal discussion, please contact Dr Jen Slater (j.slater@shu.ac.uk) 

Sheffield Institute of Education (SIoE) is a hub of disability research, and the home of the Disability Research Forum. This studentship would allow for the development of research within the broad areas of trans, queer and disability studies. Areas of research could include (but are not restricted to): 

• • The experiences of trans and/or queer disabled people within an educational context 
• • Trans and/or queer disabled people’s experiences of place and space 
• • Studies of ‘accessibility’ with a focus on trans, queer and disabled people’s lives 
• • Considering the normativity of a particular context (e.g. childhood, parenting, education) through trans, queer and disability studies lenses 
• • Critical explorations of research methodologies (e.g. participatory research) through engagement with trans, queer and disability studies 

The applicant will be free to develop their own methodological approach within a qualitative remit. Potential supervisors have the capacity to support a wide range of qualitative methodologies, including inclusive, participatory and arts-based practices and text-based research. 

The successful student will benefit from, and contribute to, existing trans, queer and disability scholarship within SIoE. The proposed supervisors are experienced researchers and will support the student’s academic publication and dissemination. 

The above descriptor aims to be indicative rather than restrictive. 

2. LGBT+ experiences of formal and informal education and/or ‘youth’ 

For further information, or informal discussion, please contact Dr Eleanor Formby (e.formby@shu.ac.uk) 

Sheffield Institute of Education is home to a number of researchers interested in LGBT+ (not limited to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans) lives, often with a specific focus on young people. We welcome applicants who share this interest and who would contribute to our research areas. Specific subject areas might include, but are not limited to, LGBT+ people’s: 

• • experiences of post-compulsory education (e.g. in further or higher education) 
• • transitions to adulthood 
• • engagement with youth work, whether ‘mainstream’, targeted or LGBT-specific 
• • journeys through schooling 
• • formal and informal learning about sex and sexuality 
• • involvement with activism and/or politics 
• • use of formal or informal social/peer support groups and other leisure spaces. 

We would be particularly interested in candidates who take a sociologically-informed perspective and/or who propose qualitative research methods, though we are open to discussions with all potential applicants, who are free to develop their own approach to the proposed research. The suggested supervisors are experienced researchers and will support the student’s academic publication and further dissemination, with a view to informing future scholarship and/or policy and practice. 

1st Online DRF event 2020/21

I’d like to invite you to join us for our first DRF event of 2020/21. Due to COVID-19 we are taking the DRF online and the event will be hosted through Microsoft Teams. If you would like to join us and hear these two brilliant talks please sign up on the eventbrite link below. You will receive an email on the morning of the event with the link to the session. Please do also get in touch if you have any access requirements that you want to make me aware of.

Look forward to seeing you all there!

Date: 30th November 2020

Time: 12-2pm

Pressenter 1 Name: Mette Westander

Presenter 2 Name: Adan Jerreat-Poole

To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/digital-disabled-micro-essays-on-intimacy-pain-and-technology-tickets-124521110995

Talk 1 Title: Disability Discrimination faced by UCL students and Recommended Measures

Talk 1 Abstract:

The Disabled Students Network at University College London conducted a survey, gathering testimonies from 33 disabled students regarding their experiences within different sections of the university.

The report explains what the university’s legal responsibilities are and, for each department responsible, presents testimonies showing the ways in which students are not being provided with access. We find that:

1. students experience a heavy administrative burden which in practice hinders them from accessing their education

2. many disabled students experience subtle but destructive instances of ableism from staff

3. disabled students’ support is often severely delayed or not implemented even after it has been approved

4. students are often not informed about their rights or misled about their rights

5. very few disabled students make formal complaints when they experience discrimination

67% of students surveyed stated that they had experienced ableism at UCL and 58% stated that they had been made to feel unwelcome at UCL due to their disability.

Each section in the report is accompanied by recommendations for change and toward the end we analyse some of the systematic problems which also need to be addressed. Key recommendations include:

1. Improved internal communication, responsibility, and leadership – a more joined up and accountable approach to disability support

2. Training for staff regarding practical aspects of accessibility as well as attitudes and legal responsibilities

3. Improved self-correction methods – e.g. through complaints, surveys of the student experience and student representation

4. A more anticipatory approach, including information campaigns and regular reviews of current accessibility.

Talk 2 Title: Digital Disabled: Micro Essays on Intimacy, Pain, and Technology

Talk 2 Abstract:

Sleep. Tweet. Take a painkiller. Join a Zoom call. Think. Forget to recharge your cell phone. Breathe. Forget to take your medication. Dream. This presentation is invested in small scholarship and multimedia forms of academic research; in the kinds of work produced by chronically ill bodies in digital spaces during a global pandemic. This series of micro essays explores disabled/crip forms of digital intimacy that flow between bodies (physical and virtual) and technologies, the relationship between pain and digital media, and the role of analog in critical discussions of access. This emerging research merges personal experience with broader conversations, theories, and trends surrounding disability justice, access, and feminist new media.

Bio: Adan is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University. They are a white settler in Canada who lives with chronic pain, depression, and anxiety. They study disability, digital media, and popular culture. Their work has appeared in Feminist Media Studies, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, and Game Studies. 

What has COVID-19 Stopped you from doing?

What has Covid-19 stopped you from doing that you would have done before? A call out for disabled people’s experiences.

People’s History Museum is the national museum of democracy, telling the story of its development in Britain: past, present, and future. The museum provides opportunities for all people to learn about, be inspired by and get involved in ideas worth fighting for; ideas such as equality, social justice, co-operation, and a fair world for all. The museum’s ongoing project Nothing About Us Without Us explores the history of disabled people and disabled people’s movements and their ongoing fight for equality, independence and inclusion. Nothing About Us Without Us places disabled people and disabled people’s organisations at its centre, with all elements of the project being produced through collaboration and co-creation.

We are currently working on a film project about disabled people’s experiences of the impact of Covid 19 on independent living. If you would like share your thoughts and experiences with us. We would be very happy to interview you for this film. Or if you prefer, please send in a short video recorded by yourself on a phone or device.

The deadline for submissions is 5pm, 12 November, 2020. Please get in touch with michael.powell@phm.org.uk if you would like to find out more about this project.

DRF – Call for presenters

Hello Everyone!

I hope you are all doing okay in these difficult times. I am sorry you haven’t heard much from me over the summer but I finally have a little bit of space to plan the DRF for 2020/2021.

I would very much like to continue our sessions going forward, but of course online via Zoom/Microsoft teams etc.

So, if you would like to present about your current research around disability/disability studies I am looking forward to hearing from you and setting something up! I am open to any suggestions in terms of topic and format. It might not be a paper that you want to present but perhaps bat some ideas around about an ethical issue you are having or something else.

I am going to be as flexible as possible this year, so once we have a few people pencilled in I will then update the seminar schedule.

If you would like to take part or have any questions, please email me at s.r.hannam-swain@shu.ac.uk

Hope to hear from you soon!

Steph

CALL FOR PAPERS- Feminist perspectives on Neurodiverstiy and Neuronormativity

Feminist Perspectives on Neurodiversity and Neuronormativity

Webinar: 29 Jan 2021

Feminist Studies Association UK & Ireland (FSA) & Neurodiversity Reading Group London

Deadline abstracts: 16 Nov 2020

In recent years, there has been an exponential growth of intersectional theory, feminist and trans(feminist) activism, and an emerging field of neurodiversity studies. Neurodiversity is a social and political category that refers to neurodivergent people – i.e. dyslexics, ADHDers, dyspraxics, Tourette(r)s, dyscalculics and autistics – and neurotypical people. Rejecting the medical or individual model of disability, a neurodiversity perspective recognises that neurodiversity functions as an organising principle of society: ‘neuronormativity’ – i.e. norms of neurotypicality and neuroableism – structurally privileges neurotypical people and disadvantages neurodivergent people. At the same time, there is an increasing intersectional awareness of how neurodiversity – including both neurodivergence and neurotypicality – is marked by gender and cis-trans specificities and inequalities as well as by race, class, sexuality and, for instance, geopolitical location. This understanding, then, does not approach neurodiversity ‘neutrally’: its baseline is to support struggles against not only neuro-ableism (including saneism and ableism) and sexism and misogyny, but also anti-black and other forms of racism, Islamophobia, transphobia and trans-exclusion, classism, and sexuality-based oppression. However, there remains a gap in knowledge production about these complexities.

As part of the webinar series Feminist Perspectives on Disability, the Feminist Studies Association and the Neurodiversity Reading Group London invite submissions to the webinar ‘Feminist Perspectives on Neurodiversity and Neuronormativity’. Submissions are invited to explore (1) feminist, queer, trans and, more generally, intersectional explorations of neurodiversity – e.g. of neurodiversity studies, the neurodiversity movement, neurotypicality, the conceptualisation of neurodiversity, of neuroableism and neuronorms, and of neurodivergent experiences and expressions as well as (2) neurodivergent understandings of feminist – queer, trans and, more generally, intersectional – theory, organising and living. Submissions can concern neurodiversity – both neurodivergence and neurotypicality – in general terms or discuss specific neurodivergent groups (e.g. dyspraxics, ADHDers, Tourette(r)s).

Topics to be addressed might include, but are not limited by, the following:

• Gendered norms in the theorisation of neurodiversity
• Hegemonic cis/masculinity and the neurodiversity movement
• A feminist history of neuroableism
• The neurodiversification of intersectional theory
• Feminist Global South perspectives on understanding neurodiversity
• Queering neurodivergent time and space
• Neurodivergent female entrepreneurship
• A sensory exploration of gendered dance
• The whiteness of research on neurodivergent boys
• Decolonising the neuronormativity of Modern Man
• Neurodivergent mothering & mothering neurodivergence
• Gender, neurodiversity and social media activism
• The gendered neuroableism of linearity
• Intersectional neuronormativity in mental health therapy
• The pathologisation of neurodivergent women
• Transphobia in the name of protecting neurodivergent children
• Neurotypical cis/gender representations in literature
• Intersectional understandings of the criminalisation of neurodivergence
• The pedagogy of neuroableism and sexism
• Neurodiversifying feminist research methods

This is a neurodivergent-led webinar, and neurodivergent graduate students and scholars, neurodivergent activists and community-members, as well as others presenting from marginalised perspectives, are particularly encouraged to submit an abstract.

We accept live presentations as well as pre-recorded presentations (12-15min). For the purpose of making the webinar most accessible, you will be required to submit your presentation (pre-recorded or slides & transcript) two days before the webinar takes place. There will be an option to record your presentation so that it will be available online afterwards. After acceptance, you will receive guidelines on how to make your presentation most accessible. We will also adjust the organisation of the webinar as much as possible to your access needs.

Submission details:

• Information to include in your abstract:
  • Name and contact details
  • Presentation title
  • Summary of argument
  • Presentation type: live presentation or pre-recorded presentation
  • Department & university, organisation and/or community
  • Time zone
  • Do you want your presentation recorded and made available online: yes/no
• Written abstract length: 150-200 words
• Spoken abstract length: 2-3min
• Submission deadline for abstract: 16 Nov 2020, 11.59pm UK time
• Coordination: Dr Dyi Huijg (Neurodiversity Reading Group London)
• Email your abstract to: drddhuijg AT gmail.com

After submission:

• Decision on abstracts: by 30 Nov 2020
• Communicate your access needs with the FSA on: contact AT the-fsa.co.uk
• You will receive access guidelines from the FSA to make your presentation and the webinar most accessible
• Submission deadline recording and/or slides and transcript: 27 Jan 2021, 11.59pm UK time

Further information:

• Feminist Studies Association UK & Ireland (FSA): https://the-fsa.co.uk
• Neurodiversity Reading Group London: https://neurodiversityrg.wixsite.com/site/spin-offs

Sign an open-letter supporting disabled, chronically ill and neurodivergent PhD students in the UK during COVID-19

A group of PhD students have written an open letter to funding bodies and universities that fund and host PhD students in the UK, demanding proper support for disabled, chronically ill and neurodivergent during the COVID-19 crisis.

They are asking for specific reasonable adjustments to be made to ‘ensure that disabled, chronically ill and neurodivergent students are not more disadvantaged during the COVID19 pandemic than their nondisabled peers, and to ensure parity of access to PhD study, especially since existing reasonable adjustments are likely to be no longer accessible or affective, with direct and concrete implications for our ability to complete PhD research and work as normal.’

The full text can be found here, where you can also add your signature.

Zoom seminar invitation

Open invitation from Stockholm University:

Greetings! Welcome to our first Zoom meeting of the Disability Studies Research Seminar. It will be held on May 7 at 10:00 to 11:30. We look forward to being able to discuss the following topic:

Responses to Covid-19 and disability: re-thinking vulnerability.

We will focus our seminar on three blog posts, two of which center on the issue here in Sweden and a third from the Official Blog of IJFAB: the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics written by Jackie Leach Scully. (She also wrote a book chapter on understandings of vulnerability which are highly relevant to the discussion. See below for further reading.)

http://ihuman.group.shef.ac.uk/disabled-citizens-in-sweden/?fbclid=IwAR259Y6j1_MkB_8rEHqXbc4ENH6o8x-9L1SptksEQpD05O_ZWIJiIRLxdVE

http://ihuman.group.shef.ac.uk/the-function-of-risk-groups/

http://www.ijfab.org/blog/2020/04/disablism-in-a-time-of-pandemic-some-things-dont-change/

Extra reading:

Scully, J. L. (2014). Disability and vulnerability: On bodies, dependence, and power. Vulnerability: New essays in ethics and feminist philosophy, 204-21.

Welcome!

Liz, Simo, Marie-Louise, Helén

P.S. The seminar is conducted in English and is open to researchers, PhD candidates and masters students interested in the area of Disability Studies both within and outside of the department. Feel free to forward this. If you wish to be taken off the list send me an email and I will take care of it.

Here is the Zoom link that you can use. I will open the room at 9:50 on May 7 so you can get situated.

Liz Adams Lyngbäck is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://stockholmuniversity.zoom.us/j/4530404022

Meeting ID: 453 040 4022

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Virtual CRIPOSIUM – call for submissions

Dear all

The KCL Disability + Intersectionality reading group are very happy to announce that we will be running a virtual CRIPOSIUM this June (6th & 13th) in collaboration with SOAS Crip Feminist reading group.

The Criposium is a two-day virtual symposium and exhibition on disability, intersectionality, and all things crip. It is open to all, including students, staff, PGR/ECR, artists, activists, advocates, and allies.

As well as traditional paper presentations, we are also opening a call for creative submissions such as poetry, art, doodles, photoessays etc. Creative submissions will be shared on the website gallery and the event Instagram page.

If you’ve had to cancel conferences this year due to the coronavirus, we would love to hear from you, please send us your abstracts. Or if you’ve been spending your time in lockdown writing poetry or creating art, please also share them with us!

Please see http://criposium.wordpress.com for details on submissions and access. Also share and follow us on Twitter @criposium and IG @criposium

If you are interested in helping out with the conference (as a moderator or editor) please get in touch, we would really appreciate the help.

Thanks and stay safe!

Christina, Manishta, Molly, and Mel