Only two days left to sign up! DRF Event 4! (9th April, 1-3pm) – ‘Undateables, asexuality and the intimate rights of disabled people’ and ‘What can I, you know, do in this department?’ – Disability and Cinematic Representations of Gender, Bodies and Sexualities’

Date: 9th April 2021

Time: 1-3pm

Pressenter 1 Name: Bev Pollitt

Presenter 2 Name: Petra Anders

To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/drf-seminar-series-event-4-tickets-147740504827

Talk 1 Title: #Undateables, asexuality and the intimate rights of disabled people

Talk 1 Abstract:

Undeniably, a wealth of socio-political activism pertaining to disability has been undertaken within recent years, much of which emanates from differing perspectives and considers a variety of aspects concerning rights and well-being. However, despite progressive movements, there has been little development surrounding the intimate rights of disabled people, with their entitlements in this area often going overlooked.

My research adopts a MMDA and TA approach to critically explore disability and sexuality as a broad concept, and then more specifically, in relation to Channel 4’s The Undateables. The research aims to satisfy a gap in the existing literature by unveiling the impact a reality dating programme, solely for disabled participants, has on public perceptions of disability and sexuality. Findings indicate The Undateables is principally an educational opportunity which produces a sense of parity, whilst simultaneously creating empowerment for disabled people, both individually and as a collective.

Whilst these findings affirm positive movement in this intimate area, additional findings exposed The Undateables as a voyeuristic opportunity which can be exploited by viewers to promote their own self-worth. Moreover, material associated with disability and sexuality is discovered to be besieged with heteronormative representations alongside being governed by the historical notion of masculinity and its allied supremacy.

Talk 2 Title: ‘What can I, you know, do in that department?’ – Disability and Cinematic Representations of Gender, Bodies and Sexualities

Talk 2 Abstract:

Cinematic narratives tell us a lot about how we perceive the gender, bodies or sexualities of disabled people. Thus we need to raise more awareness for their ‘hidden’ messages, especially if they are of high ‘learning and teaching value’ and unrealistic.

The eponymous protagonist of Michael Akers’s drama Morgan (2012) feels attracted to an able-bodied man after being left paralyzed from the waist down following an accident. As Morgan doubts that he will be able to ever have sex again he asks his physiotherapist quite bluntly: ‘What can I, you know, do in that department?’ The same question could/should be asked by filmmakers and mainstream society to question representations of gender, bodies and sexualities of disabled characters in film. Which stereotypical myths and metaphors of bodily ‘abnormality’ and absence of physical desire or even gender are perpetuated in feature films in connection with disabled characters? How can these myths and metaphors be challenged?

My paper combines disability studies and film studies. I also draw on what Thomas Hoeksema and Christopher Smit call the ‘teaching and learning value’ (Hoeksema/Smit 2001: 42) of inadequate cinematic representations of disability and on Thomas G. Gerschick’s observation that ‘the bodies of people with disabilities make them vulnerable to being denied recognition as women and men. The type of disability, its visibility, its severity, and whether it is physical or mental in origin mediate the degree to which the body of a person with a disability is socially compromised.’ (Gerschick 2008: 361)

By investigating how editing, camera and music perpetuate or challenge, emphasize or contrast with certain narratives of normalcy and diversity I will show that most contemporary feature films still make use of a disabled character’s gender, body and sexuality to establish a conflict. This applies to films such as Christian Alvart’s thriller Antibodies (2005) and Margarethe von Trotta’s drama I am the Other Woman (2006) as well as the more recent drama Stronger (2017) by David Gordon Green. Unfortunately, this key trend is often neglected if cinematic portrays of disabled people are discussed. In contrast, films such as Daniel Lind Lagerlöf’s Miffo (2003), Ben Lewin’s The Sessions (2012) or Morgan portray people who develop a positive attitude towards (their) disabled bodies and who have fulfilled sex lives. These films offer a healthy and more realistic portray of disabled people and their rights to define their gender and to develop good body feeling.

 This paper is an updated version of a paper I gave at the conference ‘Inclusion and Exclusion in the Welfare Society’ hosted by the Nordic Network on Disability Research in Copenhagen in 2019.

 References

 Akers, Michael D. 2012. Morgan

Alvart, Christian. 2005. Antibodies: Antikörper

 Gerschick, Thomas J. 2008. ‘Toward a Theory of Disability and Gender’, in Karen E. Rosenblum, and Toni-Michelle Travis (eds), The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and Disability (New York NY: McGraw-Hill), pp. 360–63

 Green, David Gordon. 2017. Stronger

 Hoeksema, Thomas B., and Christopher R. Smit. 2001. ‘The Fusion of Film Studies and Disability Studies.’, in Christopher R. Smit, and Anthony Enns (eds), Screening disability: Essays on cinema and disability (Lanham, MD: University Press of America), pp. 33–43

 Lewin, Ben. 2012. The Sessions

 Lind Lagerlöf, Daniel. 2003. Miffo: Miffo

 Roehler, Oskar. 2005. Elementary Particles: Elementarteilchen

Trotta, Margarethe von. 2006. I am the Other Woman: Ich bin die Andere

Bio

Dr Petra Anders is based in Germany. Her research includes cinematic representations of disability, disability studies and gender, and teaching or dance practice. Publications include the chapter ‘More than the “Other”?: On Four Tendencies Regarding the Representation of Disability in Contemporary German Film (2005-2010)’ in Benjamin Fraser’s Cultures of Representation: Disability in World Film Context, ‘Screening Gay Characters with Disabilities’ as part of the blog NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality and the chapter ‘Mediale Zuschreibungen. Über die Rolle von Behinderung im Spielfilm’, in Kunst, Kultur und Inklusion. Menschen mit Behinderung in Presse, Film und Fernsehen: Darstellung und Berichterstattung edited by Juliane Gerland, Susanne Keuchel and Irmgard Merkt. Further publications, for example, an essay on disability in Wim Wenders’ films, are forthcoming in 2021.

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Launch event for new Queer Disability Studies Network – call for ideas

Some members of the Disability Research Forum have been involved in the formation of a new Queer Disability Studies (QDS) Network. More information below, and you can also read more on the QDS Network blog and follow the Network on Twitter @QueerDisability

BSL versions of the blurb below and the Network’s aims are available here.

The Queer Disability Studies Network aims to provide a space for people whose experiences, research, or activism cut across categories of trans, queer, and disability issues. It provides a creative space for people whose work (in or outside or academia) fits in these areas but who may feel less at home or secure in established Trans, Queer or Disability Studies spaces. This network is explicitly trans-inclusive, and is committed to exploring the intersections of trans/queer and disability issues without resorting to pathologising language or constructing fears about vulnerability. 

The network is in its very early stages, and we hope it will grow and develop in ways that we haven’t yet imagined. At this stage, however, the network has three aims. It will: 

1. Provide a space for collaboration and feedback between queer disability studies academics and activists, 
2. Allow for the generation of trans/queer affirmative ideas that can inform disability studies theory and practice, and 
3. Support opposition to trans exclusionary ideas, within our institutions and more widely.

For more detail on the network’s aims, see the network’s Aims page.

To launch the Queer Disability Studies (QDS) Network, we are very pleased to announce a month-long online event throughout October 2021. We hope this launch month will be a way for us all to collectively shape the work of the network, to learn more about each other and the exciting work already being done in this field globally, and to re-imagine the direction and purpose of QDS as an interdisciplinary field and community.

Questions you may want to consider or respond to, include:

1. How would you want Queer Disability Studies (QDS) to look as field, and what would you like it to do? What new and creative spaces do we need to build within QDS for dialogue, support, and community, as well as for resistance and critique? How does this fit with the work that you’re doing now?
2. Does existing literature across Queer, Trans, and Disability Studies adequately respond to the intersections, interchange, and potential alliances between these areas (and communities), and how might this work be developed in the future?
3. Who is acknowledged and listened to, who gets spoken for or over, and whose language is protected and promoted in Queer, Trans and Disability Studies? And how can we work towards correcting or remodelling this?
4. What new or transformative ways of re-thinking academic conventions (such as public speaking, conference organisation, and journal publications) are needed to make our ways of working, organising, or thinking more accessible and equitable? 
5. Does QDS help us to think in different – perhaps more radical or disruptive – ways about accessibility? Has the pandemic had any impact on our approaches to this?
6. Why is accessibility important to working within Queer, Trans and Disability Studies, and are there any access needs that we need to be especially attentive to, which address the intersections of the lives of queer, trans and disabled people?
7. Does QDS provide us with any tools or strategies to think differently about managing ableism, transphobia, biphobia, homophobia, and other intersecting forms of oppression such as intersexphobia, racism, sexism, faphobia or class inequality, particularly in academic contexts? How might our work in QDS help us to respond to current – often individualising – approaches taken by academic institutions, such as Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives, unconscious bias training and equality protocols?
8. Why is it important to make connections between activism, practice, and academia within QDS? How can we do this in ways which are collaborative, non-exploitative, productive, and meaningful?
9. Why are citational practices important, and how might we manage the ethics of citing authors and/or journals with views or politics that are diametrically opposed to our own?
10. What have we overlooked in the questions that we’ve asked above? We write these questions from our positions as social scientists in the UK – what difference does positionality, geography and/or disciplinary context make to the requirements from such a network? How might the questions and the network be approached or imagined differently?

We welcome contributions in a range of formats, including longer written contributions between 800-1500 words in total, and videos between 3-5 minutes in length, as well as other creative formats such as poetry, short stories, or artistic visions. We’re open to different ideas and experimental formats. Please consider ways of making your final contributions accessible to a wide audience (e.g. captioning videos and images, providing a script of audio, audio-recording written text). If you have questions or concerns about content, format, accessibility or anything else, you are welcome to get in touch for a conversation, prior to submission.

Contributions will be shared on our blog post at intervals throughout the month of October. The event itself and all contributions we share will be asynchronous (i.e. none of us will need to be online at the same time to participate), so you can engage with the work at your own pace and at a time that suits you. However, the blog post comments sections will be open for responses and discussion (after admin approval), and we will be encouraging the use of Twitter and a private platform for contributors only. 

We will facilitate anonymous contributions if this is your preference. We will be in touch with information about safety before the event, and we welcome questions or comments about this by email if you have any concerns. Please feel free to contact any of the current network administers using the contact details provided here.

Pitch your idea

To contribute to our launch event, please send an informal proposal of up to 200 words, using our submission form by 24th May 2021. Please also provide a short bio (up to 150 words). We are also asking for some brief information about how you intend to make your contribution accessible. We’ll get back to you with feedback in July before asking you to submit your final contribution.

We have ten £50 QDS Network Awards to give to successful contributors who currently receive a low or no income/stipend, are unemployed, or are in precarious employment. This is to recognise the value of contributions from early-career researchers, PhD students, activists and others on low/no income. If we receive more than ten applications for these awards, original and insightful proposals which best fit the aims of the event will be prioritised. 

Key dates
Proposal deadline – 24th May 2021
Notification emails – 1st July 2021
Final submission of contributions – 1st September 2021
Questions in Queer Disability Studies Month – Throughout October 2021

Conference – Disability History: Knowledge, Practice and Collaboration

14th May, 13:00 – 16:30 BST – online event. Register here

Join us to discuss and share issues in the field of Disability History

About this Event

This year’s conference is divided into three strands knowledge, practice and collaboration. In knowledge, we will hear from archivists, librarians and historians about their work and collections. In practice, we will hear from institutions, self-advocacy groups, artists. In collaboration, there will be a chance for all those active in the space of disability history to come together.

Confirmed presentations include …

Knowledge

Disabled workers in the archives: twentieth century British perspectives

Lucy Delap – University of Cambridge

This talk will examine how ‘accidental archives’ have been created that trace the lives of disabled workers across different kinds of jobs. It examines the ‘aftercare’ infrastructure of the special schools system, the employment quotas initiated in 1944, and reflects on the choices made by workers to identify as disabled or evade such categorisations.

The British Library

Collaboration between Contemporary Archives and Manuscripts Department; Oral History Department and UK Web Archive

Hear about the British Libraries contemporary archive material related to Disability History, including the Archive of the Association of Disabled Professionals (Add MS 89385) in the Contemporary Archives and Manuscripts collections, a range of Oral History projects including ‘Disability Voices’, ‘Speaking for Ourselves’ and ‘How was School?’ (collection guide), and curated collections on the UK Web Archive

Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability

Chris Olver – Archivist

The Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability (RHN) has been working towards improving the lives of people living with disabilities since 1854. The RHN Archive is currently supported by a National Lottery Heritage Fund to help create and promote the hospital’s heritage… See how the type of technology available and the wider context of assistive and mobility aids used during the early years of the hospital; how the improvements in robotics, computers, creative design of equipment improved wheelchair design at the hospital during the 1980s and finally, how current Compass Assistive and Rehabilitation Technology Service, supports current patients with the latest assistive and rehabilitative technologies.

Practice

Dr Philip Milnes-Smith

“But who comes here?”: Invisible disability and you

This presentation uses autism to exemplify the experience of those with an invisible disability, and the access challenges presented in heritage settings for both staff and service users

Dr Philip Milnes-Smith trained as an archivist after a career in special education, working with young people with moderate learning difficulties and autism. He is a co-training officer for the Archives for Learning and education Section of ARA, and on the steering committee for an Accessible Learning Toolkit for the sector. He is also one of ARA’s Diversity and Inclusion Allies.

Glamorgan Archives and People First!

People First Takeover!

Hear about the Glamorgan Archives and People First! take over day and how they are working in partnership to include people with a learning disability in taking ownership of heritage.

Collaboration

In the collaboration strand we will use break out rooms to recreate the stalls and networking that are such a popular part of conferences at London Metropolitan Archives. There will be break out rooms with “stall holders” as well as room(s) for general discussion. Delegates will be able to move freely through these rooms. If you would like to be “a virtual stall holder” to promote and share you’re your organisation or activities please contact events.lma@Cityoflondon.gov.uk

Webinar for Access and inclusion for students with disabilities higher education network – in selected countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

4th May 2021 

·         16:00 – 18:30 hours (Philippine Standard Time) 

·         09:00 – 11:30 hours (British Summer Time)

This online session will share findings from a networking project that aims to investigate the factors that influence access and inclusion for disabled students in higher education (HE) in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

An estimated 650 million people in the Asia-Pacific region live with a disability. The 2010 Census of Population and Housing in the Philippines alone, found 1.57% of people had a disability, with the highest prevalence in the 5-19-year old category – at which age education suffers. In 2018, UNESCO stated that the gap between representation and achievement of disabled and non-disabled people is greatest in the ASEAN countries.

The network partners used a qualitative research approach, combining desk-based research and online focus groups (due to the COVID-19 pandemic), to investigate laws, policies and practices impacting on the ability of students with disabilities to access and succeed in their institutions. This session will share data and findings based on in-country perspectives and will raise the key challenges and opportunities to improving access and inclusion for students with disabilities in Higher Education Institutions the ASEAN region.

In addition, the ALIGN network is looking to extend its membership to other partner higher education institutions in the ASEAN countries to join the conversation, and there will be a question-and-answer session at the end of the webinar.

Network partners

·         Coventry University, UK (Co-lead)

·         Philippine Normal University, Philippines (Co-lead)

·         Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Malaysia

·         Universitas Kristen Indonesia

·         Phu Xuan University, Vietnam

·         Centre for Higher Education Studies, Vietnam Institute of Education Sciences

This networking grant is funded by GCRF and the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Who is this event for?

This event will be of interest to educators, policy makers, senior University leaders, support staff, non-government organisations, agencies, charitable organisations, students and parents or carers in the ASEAN region.

REGISTER HERE

Kind regards

Research Centre for Global Learning (GLEA)

Coventry University, Priory Street, CV1 5FB

 W: www.coventry.ac.uk/globallearning

Twitter: @CovUni_GLEA

Come join us for DRF Event 4! (9th April, 1-3pm) – ‘Undateables, asexuality and the intimate rights of disabled people’ and ‘What can I, you know, do in this department?’ – Disability and Cinematic Representations of Gender, Bodies and Sexualities’

Date: 9th April 2021

Time: 1-3pm

Pressenter 1 Name: Bev Pollitt

Presenter 2 Name: Petra Anders

To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/drf-seminar-series-event-4-tickets-147740504827

Talk 1 Title: #Undateables, asexuality and the intimate rights of disabled people

Talk 1 Abstract:

Undeniably, a wealth of socio-political activism pertaining to disability has been undertaken within recent years, much of which emanates from differing perspectives and considers a variety of aspects concerning rights and well-being. However, despite progressive movements, there has been little development surrounding the intimate rights of disabled people, with their entitlements in this area often going overlooked.

My research adopts a MMDA and TA approach to critically explore disability and sexuality as a broad concept, and then more specifically, in relation to Channel 4’s The Undateables. The research aims to satisfy a gap in the existing literature by unveiling the impact a reality dating programme, solely for disabled participants, has on public perceptions of disability and sexuality. Findings indicate The Undateables is principally an educational opportunity which produces a sense of parity, whilst simultaneously creating empowerment for disabled people, both individually and as a collective.

Whilst these findings affirm positive movement in this intimate area, additional findings exposed The Undateables as a voyeuristic opportunity which can be exploited by viewers to promote their own self-worth. Moreover, material associated with disability and sexuality is discovered to be besieged with heteronormative representations alongside being governed by the historical notion of masculinity and its allied supremacy.

Talk 2 Title: ‘What can I, you know, do in that department?’ – Disability and Cinematic Representations of Gender, Bodies and Sexualities

Talk 2 Abstract:

Cinematic narratives tell us a lot about how we perceive the gender, bodies or sexualities of disabled people. Thus we need to raise more awareness for their ‘hidden’ messages, especially if they are of high ‘learning and teaching value’ and unrealistic.

The eponymous protagonist of Michael Akers’s drama Morgan (2012) feels attracted to an able-bodied man after being left paralyzed from the waist down following an accident. As Morgan doubts that he will be able to ever have sex again he asks his physiotherapist quite bluntly: ‘What can I, you know, do in that department?’ The same question could/should be asked by filmmakers and mainstream society to question representations of gender, bodies and sexualities of disabled characters in film. Which stereotypical myths and metaphors of bodily ‘abnormality’ and absence of physical desire or even gender are perpetuated in feature films in connection with disabled characters? How can these myths and metaphors be challenged?

My paper combines disability studies and film studies. I also draw on what Thomas Hoeksema and Christopher Smit call the ‘teaching and learning value’ (Hoeksema/Smit 2001: 42) of inadequate cinematic representations of disability and on Thomas G. Gerschick’s observation that ‘the bodies of people with disabilities make them vulnerable to being denied recognition as women and men. The type of disability, its visibility, its severity, and whether it is physical or mental in origin mediate the degree to which the body of a person with a disability is socially compromised.’ (Gerschick 2008: 361)

By investigating how editing, camera and music perpetuate or challenge, emphasize or contrast with certain narratives of normalcy and diversity I will show that most contemporary feature films still make use of a disabled character’s gender, body and sexuality to establish a conflict. This applies to films such as Christian Alvart’s thriller Antibodies (2005) and Margarethe von Trotta’s drama I am the Other Woman (2006) as well as the more recent drama Stronger (2017) by David Gordon Green. Unfortunately, this key trend is often neglected if cinematic portrays of disabled people are discussed. In contrast, films such as Daniel Lind Lagerlöf’s Miffo (2003), Ben Lewin’s The Sessions (2012) or Morgan portray people who develop a positive attitude towards (their) disabled bodies and who have fulfilled sex lives. These films offer a healthy and more realistic portray of disabled people and their rights to define their gender and to develop good body feeling.

 This paper is an updated version of a paper I gave at the conference ‘Inclusion and Exclusion in the Welfare Society’ hosted by the Nordic Network on Disability Research in Copenhagen in 2019.

 References

 Akers, Michael D. 2012. Morgan

Alvart, Christian. 2005. Antibodies: Antikörper

 Gerschick, Thomas J. 2008. ‘Toward a Theory of Disability and Gender’, in Karen E. Rosenblum, and Toni-Michelle Travis (eds), The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and Disability (New York NY: McGraw-Hill), pp. 360–63

 Green, David Gordon. 2017. Stronger

 Hoeksema, Thomas B., and Christopher R. Smit. 2001. ‘The Fusion of Film Studies and Disability Studies.’, in Christopher R. Smit, and Anthony Enns (eds), Screening disability: Essays on cinema and disability (Lanham, MD: University Press of America), pp. 33–43

 Lewin, Ben. 2012. The Sessions

 Lind Lagerlöf, Daniel. 2003. Miffo: Miffo

 Roehler, Oskar. 2005. Elementary Particles: Elementarteilchen

Trotta, Margarethe von. 2006. I am the Other Woman: Ich bin die Andere

Bio

Dr Petra Anders is based in Germany. Her research includes cinematic representations of disability, disability studies and gender, and teaching or dance practice. Publications include the chapter ‘More than the “Other”?: On Four Tendencies Regarding the Representation of Disability in Contemporary German Film (2005-2010)’ in Benjamin Fraser’s Cultures of Representation: Disability in World Film Context, ‘Screening Gay Characters with Disabilities’ as part of the blog NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality and the chapter ‘Mediale Zuschreibungen. Über die Rolle von Behinderung im Spielfilm’, in Kunst, Kultur und Inklusion. Menschen mit Behinderung in Presse, Film und Fernsehen: Darstellung und Berichterstattung edited by Juliane Gerland, Susanne Keuchel and Irmgard Merkt. Further publications, for example, an essay on disability in Wim Wenders’ films, are forthcoming in 2021.

Call for Papers! – New Dialogues Between Medical Sociology and Disability Studies.

New Dialogues Between Medical Sociology and Disability Studies – Call for Papers for Special Issue in ‘Sociology of Health and Illness’

Gareth Thomas (Cardiff University), Sasha Scambler (King’s College London), Janice McLaughlin (Newcastle University)

Full call: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/14679566/homepage/cfp-si

**********

This special issue will dissect the intersections, boundaries, and points of divergence between the disciplines of medical sociology and disability studies. Disability frequently remains on the margins of the sociological imagination. Medical sociology is one discipline where analyses of living with disability have always been present, but such analyses have been critiqued for being too embedded in notions of personal tragedy and too little engaged with wider structural processes. Reacting to an apolitical ‘social deviance paradigm’ (Thomas 2012), writers in disability studies promote the ‘social oppression paradigm’ that equates living with disability to social oppression, structural hostilities, and everyday indignities. The response of, at least some, medical sociologists has been to challenge disability studies for erasing the body and dismissing how impairment shapes people’s lives. Developments in both disciplines and wider social contexts mean that it is now possible to move beyond this legacy of disagreement to explore productive collaborations. We view this special issue as part of that endeavour. We encourage international authors to contribute, including those located in areas where medical sociology and disability studies are developing as disciplines. Contributions may address (but are not limited to) the following themes:

Theorising Disability: We invite contributions to identify the contemporary points for convergence in theorising disability and, in so doing, dismantle the notion that medical sociologists and scholars of disability studies are rigidly interested in different matters.

Stigma, Normalcy, and Inequality: We seek articles that move beyond individualistic, atheoretical, and apolitical understandings of stigma, and reengage with the concept to consider how stigma, ideas of normalcy, and inequality remain defining aspects of disabled people’s lives. We also seek work on how disabled people contest and rework deficit framings and treatments to promote more affirmative accounts.

Disability and Care: We encourage contributions on how notions of care play out in the everyday lives of disabled people (inside and outside of health and social care settings). Care has had a troubling presence in medical sociology and disability studies owing to associations with passivity, charity and burden. Instead, we want to see articles that consider the depth of the relationships and practices involved in caring (e.g. ethic of care; rethinking interdependence; how technologies are supportive, limiting, or both).

The Intersections of Disability: Contributions will be encouraged to consider how disability is not a totalising tag; it is a relational category since what counts as disabled in diverse socio-cultural settings is variable and mobilised in different ways. They will also engage with how identity politics and varied inequalities connect to gender, race, sexuality, and/or age.

We particularly encourage contributions from, and will endeavour to work with, researchers based in the Global South, early career researchers, and independent researchers-activists. Potential contributors should send an abstract of up to 600 words to thomasg23@cf.ac.uk by 5 July 2021.

Informal enquiries prior to submission are welcome and encouraged. The name of the author(s) should be supplied, including full contact details. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Special Issue team and potential contributors notified by 30 July 2021. Shortlisted authors will be invited to submit their first full version by 10 January 2022. Submissions will be refereed in the usual way and should follow the journal’s style guidelines.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Kind regards,

Gareth, Sasha, and Janice

thomasg23@cf.ac.uk

sasha.scambler@kcl.ac.uk

janice.mclaughlin@newcastle.ac.uk

Only two more days to sign up for DRF Event 3 – ‘Work not the workhouse: Deaf and disabled mill workers in the UK textile industry’ and ‘Disability and COVID-19 in the Global South’ – March 22nd, 10am-Noon

Date: 22nd March 2021

Time: 10am-12 Noon

Pressenter 1 Name: Gill Crawshaw

Presenter 2 Name: Vera Kubenz

To register: Please sign up with Eventbrite

Talk 1 Title: Work not the workhouse: Deaf and disabled mill workers in the UK textile industry

Talk 1 Abstract:

A common assertion in disability studies is that the Industrial Revolution excluded disabled people from the workplace. In the leading industry in terms of employment and output, textile manufacture, this was not the case.

Disabled people’s own accounts as well as reports of employers show that Deaf and disabled people were part of the workforce of the textile industry in the UK. In addition, evidence collected as part of investigations on behalf of government into conditions in textile mills showed high levels of industrial injuries. Accidents from machinery, constant loud noise and the effects of working in unventilated premises led to great numbers of workers becoming disabled. Many of these disabled people continued to work through sheer necessity, to avoid the workhouse and to meet the demands of the industry.

This raises interesting questions about the contribution of disabled people to the Industrial Revolution. It is arguably a period when disabled workers were more included in the workforce than they are today!

I would welcome your comments on this project and any suggestions for continuing  the research further. 

Biog: I’m a curator, I draw on my experience of disability activism to organise exhibitions and events which highlight issues affecting disabled people. My curatorial practice includes writing and research.

Exhibitions have addressed representation (Possible All Along, 2020), charity (Piss on Pity, 2019), cuts to welfare and public spending (Shoddy, 2016), and access (The Reality of Small Differences, 2014).

I’m interested in the intersection of disabled people’s lives with textile heritage as well as contemporary textile arts.

I’m an alumna of the first Disability Studies cohort at the Centre for Disability Studies, University of Leeds (1994).

Talk 2 Title: Disability and COVID-19 in the Global South

Talk 2 Abstract: This talk will present an overview of the findings from a literature review on the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of disabled people in Low- and Middle-Income Countries in the areas of Health, Education, Economy, and Community. The review shows that despite repeated calls in academic and policy literature to involve disabled people in emergency planning, they have yet again been ‘forgotten’ during the pandemic and not included in decision-making processes. Lack of social protection means many are more worried about starving than contracting COVID-19. Furthermore, disabled people’s lives have been devalued, and labels such as ‘vulnerable’ disguise the systemic violence perpetrated against disabled people through discriminatory triage protocols and the closure of services for disabled people as they are not considered ‘essential’. As well as a discussion of the literature review findings and what they mean for disabled campaigners from both the Global South and Global North, there will also be some reflection on what it means to be doing research on disability in the Global South as a UK-based researcher and how to encourage equitable participation and decolonisation of knowledge.

Still time to sign up! DRF Event 3 – ‘Work not the workhouse: Deaf and disabled mill workers in the UK textile industry’ and ‘Disability and COVID-19 in the Global South’ – March 22nd, 10am-Noon

Date: 22nd March 2021

Time: 10am-12 Noon

Pressenter 1 Name: Gill Crawshaw

Presenter 2 Name: Vera Kubenz

To register: Please sign up with Eventbrite

Talk 1 Title: Work not the workhouse: Deaf and disabled mill workers in the UK textile industry

Talk 1 Abstract:

A common assertion in disability studies is that the Industrial Revolution excluded disabled people from the workplace. In the leading industry in terms of employment and output, textile manufacture, this was not the case.

Disabled people’s own accounts as well as reports of employers show that Deaf and disabled people were part of the workforce of the textile industry in the UK. In addition, evidence collected as part of investigations on behalf of government into conditions in textile mills showed high levels of industrial injuries. Accidents from machinery, constant loud noise and the effects of working in unventilated premises led to great numbers of workers becoming disabled. Many of these disabled people continued to work through sheer necessity, to avoid the workhouse and to meet the demands of the industry.

This raises interesting questions about the contribution of disabled people to the Industrial Revolution. It is arguably a period when disabled workers were more included in the workforce than they are today!

I would welcome your comments on this project and any suggestions for continuing  the research further. 

Biog: I’m a curator, I draw on my experience of disability activism to organise exhibitions and events which highlight issues affecting disabled people. My curatorial practice includes writing and research.

Exhibitions have addressed representation (Possible All Along, 2020), charity (Piss on Pity, 2019), cuts to welfare and public spending (Shoddy, 2016), and access (The Reality of Small Differences, 2014).

I’m interested in the intersection of disabled people’s lives with textile heritage as well as contemporary textile arts.

I’m an alumna of the first Disability Studies cohort at the Centre for Disability Studies, University of Leeds (1994).

Talk 2 Title: Disability and COVID-19 in the Global South

Talk 2 Abstract: This talk will present an overview of the findings from a literature review on the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of disabled people in Low- and Middle-Income Countries in the areas of Health, Education, Economy, and Community. The review shows that despite repeated calls in academic and policy literature to involve disabled people in emergency planning, they have yet again been ‘forgotten’ during the pandemic and not included in decision-making processes. Lack of social protection means many are more worried about starving than contracting COVID-19. Furthermore, disabled people’s lives have been devalued, and labels such as ‘vulnerable’ disguise the systemic violence perpetrated against disabled people through discriminatory triage protocols and the closure of services for disabled people as they are not considered ‘essential’. As well as a discussion of the literature review findings and what they mean for disabled campaigners from both the Global South and Global North, there will also be some reflection on what it means to be doing research on disability in the Global South as a UK-based researcher and how to encourage equitable participation and decolonisation of knowledge.

Come join us for DRF Event 3 – ‘Work not the workhouse: Deaf and disabled mill workers in the UK textile industry’ and ‘Disability and COVID-19 in the Global South’ – March 22nd, 10am-Noon

Date: 22nd March 2021

Time: 10am-12 Noon

Pressenter 1 Name: Gill Crawshaw

Presenter 2 Name: Vera Kubenz

To register: Please sign up with Eventbrite

Talk 1 Title: Work not the workhouse: Deaf and disabled mill workers in the UK textile industry

Talk 1 Abstract:

A common assertion in disability studies is that the Industrial Revolution excluded disabled people from the workplace. In the leading industry in terms of employment and output, textile manufacture, this was not the case.

Disabled people’s own accounts as well as reports of employers show that Deaf and disabled people were part of the workforce of the textile industry in the UK. In addition, evidence collected as part of investigations on behalf of government into conditions in textile mills showed high levels of industrial injuries. Accidents from machinery, constant loud noise and the effects of working in unventilated premises led to great numbers of workers becoming disabled. Many of these disabled people continued to work through sheer necessity, to avoid the workhouse and to meet the demands of the industry.

This raises interesting questions about the contribution of disabled people to the Industrial Revolution. It is arguably a period when disabled workers were more included in the workforce than they are today!

I would welcome your comments on this project and any suggestions for continuing  the research further. 

Biog: I’m a curator, I draw on my experience of disability activism to organise exhibitions and events which highlight issues affecting disabled people. My curatorial practice includes writing and research.

Exhibitions have addressed representation (Possible All Along, 2020), charity (Piss on Pity, 2019), cuts to welfare and public spending (Shoddy, 2016), and access (The Reality of Small Differences, 2014).

I’m interested in the intersection of disabled people’s lives with textile heritage as well as contemporary textile arts.

I’m an alumna of the first Disability Studies cohort at the Centre for Disability Studies, University of Leeds (1994).

Talk 2 Title: Disability and COVID-19 in the Global South

Talk 2 Abstract: This talk will present an overview of the findings from a literature review on the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of disabled people in Low- and Middle-Income Countries in the areas of Health, Education, Economy, and Community. The review shows that despite repeated calls in academic and policy literature to involve disabled people in emergency planning, they have yet again been ‘forgotten’ during the pandemic and not included in decision-making processes. Lack of social protection means many are more worried about starving than contracting COVID-19. Furthermore, disabled people’s lives have been devalued, and labels such as ‘vulnerable’ disguise the systemic violence perpetrated against disabled people through discriminatory triage protocols and the closure of services for disabled people as they are not considered ‘essential’. As well as a discussion of the literature review findings and what they mean for disabled campaigners from both the Global South and Global North, there will also be some reflection on what it means to be doing research on disability in the Global South as a UK-based researcher and how to encourage equitable participation and decolonisation of knowledge.

Call for Papers for Special Issue Proposal – Minority mobility trajectories, and the costs of education-driven social mobility in disadvantaged minority groups

In: Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education
(ISI Web of Knowledge: Q1, 2019 JCR impact factor 1.607)

Special Issue Guest Editors:
Dr. Bálint Ábel Bereményi (Democracy Institute, Central European University)
beremenyi.abel@gmail.com
Dr. Judit Durst (Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
durst.judit@tk.mta.hu

Deadline for submitting the title, 5 keywords, 200-words abstract: March 5th, 2021
Full text (6000-9000 words) submission by: July 30th, 2021

FOCUS
This special issue enquires into the consequences of education-driven social mobility in the
intersection of a variety of costs of social mobility and the distinctiveness of the mobility
experiences among members of disadvantaged minority groups. It investigates in different
social settings what mobility means for those minorities who experience it, and what are the
social implications of their “individual success at the cost of collective failure” (Reay 2018). It
aims to offer a comparative perspective through theory-driven, but empirically based
contributions.
We invite contributors from different disciplinary domains to address one or several of the
following questions:

• What kinds of hidden and apparent costs of education driven mobility are experienced by
  particular disadvantaged minority groups in different social, economic and historical
  contexts? To what extent are those costs specific for different minorities?
• Can a distinctive minority mobility trajectory be observed in the case of different minority
  groups who achieved education-driven social mobility?
• What coping strategies are applied at an individual or group level to mitigate the costs of
  upward social mobility?
• How do educational and other public policies and institutional settings contribute to
  minority and disadvantaged groups’ differentiated and distinctive experience of social
  mobility and their strategies to cope with it?

RATIONALE

Education-driven social mobility of minority groups is presented in public discourses as an
unquestionably desirable process, which improves communities’ well-being, and helps
community members occupy more advantageous positions in stratified societies. Nevertheless, the process of changing social class belonging reportedly conveys serious dilemmas and difficulties to the individuals, which is described through Sorokin’s (1959) dissociative thesis; status inconsistency theory (Hope, 1975; Lenski, 1954); Bourdieu’s concept of habitus clivé (Bourdieu, 2004), or most recently, Reay’s (2005) emotional cost and the cruelty of (upward) mobility (2018), and Friedman’s (2016) sociological theorization of emotional imprint.
Beyond the costs and benefits debates, research also highlights the differentiated emergence of those mobility-related dilemmas in particular ethnic minority (among others migrants and other racialised) and disadvantaged social groups. Neckerman et.al. (1999) argue that minority middle classes share a ‘minority culture of mobility’ which provides strategies for managing economic mobility in the context of discrimination and disadvantages. Cole and Omari (2003) call for an intersectional approach that highlights Black American minority’s struggle not only for social mobility but also with the burdens imposed by wider society on the basis of race alone, which makes their mobility strategies and experience fundamentally different from that of the White Americans. Vallejo (2012) explores intra-ethnic and interethnic relationship patterns in Mexican Americans’ mobility process, and mentions particular dilemmas and coping strategies both towards the community of origin and the attained middle class. Shahrokni (2015) investigating North African minorities in France concludes that individuals’ minority culture of mobility is rooted in both class and ethno-racial processes of overcoming challenges.
Pantea’s (2015) work on young Roma women negotiating access to university in Romania, andBereményi & Durst’s (2020) contribution on Spanish and Hungarian Roma/Gypsy first-in-family university graduates, argue that these groups follow a distinctive minority mobility trajectory to face institutional racism and the costs of changing class. It requires extensive negotiation, meaning making and reframing work among a diversity of sectors in both their communities of origin and the attained middle class.
Beyond ethnic and migrant minorities, research also explores the struggle, coping strategies,
gains and the ‘price of the ticket’ (Friedman, 2013) of education-driven social mobility with
respect to other than ethnic/racial disadvantaged groups, such as LGBTQ and communities with stigmatized sexual identity (Melton & Cunningham, 2014); with intellectual and physical disability (Emerson et al., 2009; Jenkins, 1991; Maroto & Pettinicchio, 2014), or the mix of the above conditions.
In this special issue we aim to contribute to the most relevant debates on the consequences of education-driven social mobility in ethnic/racial minority and other disadvantaged groups in a
variety of socio-economic, historical and geographical settings, focusing on the experiences of struggle, dilemma and paradoxes, complementing the mainstream discussions about the social position of disadvantaged minority groups in the nexus of higher education and x social mobility.