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.