Our next Disability Reading Group and Disability Research Forum session will take place at 5th June in Arundel 10310. The reading group is 12-1pm. We are looking at:
Hughes, B. (2015). Disabled people as counterfeit citizens: the politics of resentment past and present. Disability and Society. 30(7). 991-1004. doi: 10.1080/09687599.2015.1066664
The DRF session will take place in the same room at 1.30-3.30pm
Our first speaker is Leah Burch from Liverpool Hope University:
‘All parasites should perish’: Blurring the boundaries of hate speech and banter
In a bid to justify extensive cuts to welfare support, disability has been positioned as a drain on so-called ‘hardworking taxpayers.’ A climate of financial instability has nurtured a culture of hostility towards recipients of welfare support and disabled people. This paper brings together the findings of two research projects, both exploring disablist hate speech within the context of austerity. First, I present some examples of online disablist hate speech, and consider the way in which these create a metanarrative of disability as dependent and unworthy. Following this, I draw upon some experiences of disablist hate speech, as narrated by disabled people. I consider the complexity of these experiences, both in terms of the harms that they present, as well as the everyday means of resistance that challenge these everyday expressions of disablism. I also offer some methodological reflections on the use of storytelling within disability research.
Our second speaker is Prof Katherine Runswick-Cole from the University of Sheffield
Storying Inclusion: digital stories of enacting inclusive education
In this presentation, I will share some stories collected as part of a research project: Enacting Critical Disability Communities in Education. This is a two-year international Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council-funded multimedia storytelling project, located in Toronto, Canada, focused on inclusion in schools. The project explores how multimedia storytelling might enhance inclusion by making spaces for a proliferation of representations of autism – beyond the dominant biomedical model of autism as a deficit in need of remedy. Enacting is a collaboration between Patty Douglas, PI, Brandon University, Carla Rice, from the University of Guelph and Revision: The Centre for Social Justice and Art, and me. Together with other researcher-collaborators, people who identify as autistic, family members and artist-facilitators created 17 short multimedia films and a documentary about autism and inclusion.
Katherine Runswick-Cole is Professor in Education in The School of Education at the University of Sheffield. She locates her work in the field of critical disability studies. Recent publications include: Re-thinking autism: disability, identity and equality (Ed with Mallett and Timimi, 2016, Jessica Kinglsey) and The Palgrave Handbook of Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies (Ed with Curran and Liddiard, 2017, Palgrave).
Disability Research Forum 