Disability Studies as a Framework for Research

Cynthia L Bennett

Agenda• Disability Studies Overview• Incorporating it in to Research

Mentors

Daniela K. Rosner Richard E. Ladner Joanne WoiakDavid Ribes

Disability Studies• Challenges view that disability is a deficit for remedying

by experts.

• Focused at the intersection of activism, culture, history, literature, policy, and society.

• Prioritizes accessibility and people with disabilities in leadership positions.

• What is Disability Studies?

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Models: Medical/Individual

• Disability is a deficit that should be remedied by experts.

• It is the individual’s responsibility to adapt to society

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Models: Medical/Individual

• Accessibility Research: technology for people with disabilities is separate.

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Models: Medical/Individual

• Care: As much as I value my experiences as a disabled person, I am not interested in becoming more disabled than I already am. Nor am I opposed to prenatal care and public health initiatives aimed at preventing illness and impairment...But there is a difference between denying necessary health care, condoning dangerous working conditions, or ignoring public health concerns and recognizing illness and disability as part of what makes us human. –Alison Kafer: Feminist Queer Crip

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Models: Social (Oliver 1998)

• Disability is in society.• Universal Design: It is our collective

responsibility to create accessible spaces, things, and welcoming cultures for people with disabilities.

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Social Model Critique

Sociology of Impairment:• Bring the experience of pain back in.• Considering how our bodies contextually appear and

disappear fluidly.

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Disability Studies CritiqueRepresentation• Intersectionality: A Disability Justice framework understands

that all bodies are unique and essential…We are powerful not despite the complexities of our bodies, but because of them. All bodies are caught in these bindings of ability, race, gender, sexuality, class, nation state and imperialism, and we cannot separate them. -Patty Berne

• Feminist Disability Studies -Rosemarie Garland-Thompson• Feminist Queer Crip -Alison Kafer• Blackness and Disability: Critical Examinations and Cultural

Interventions -Christopher Bell

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Disability Studies and Emancipatory Research

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

• Tries to stabilize power imbalance between researcher and participant

• Evaluate appropriate to research goals• De-emphasize statistical significance

Disability Studies and Research: Know the Space

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Disability Studies and Research: PositioningAs a non-disabled researcher…I do not claim to have mastered this type of research agenda, but strive towards it.

-Papadimitriou 2008

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Disability Studies and Research: Framing

The research presented here challenges ablest assumptions - that life after [spinal cord injury] is compromised, has a low quality of life, etc. - fostering instead a view of persons with disability as differently abled or newly abled.

-Papadimitriou 2008

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Disability Studies and Research: PerspectiveDeaf Gain –Bauman & Murray (2009)

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Disability Studies and Research: Participation

• Researchers• Expert participants to inform

research.• Participants• Open to critique from

community.

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Disability Studies and Research: Transparency • Be clear about benefits, and if no direct benefits, be

transparent.

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

Disability Studies and Research: Impact

• Try to do work with real-world impact--releasing tech or research findings in nonacademic settings.

Disability Studies • Suggestions for Research

ConclusionDisability Studies is an interdisciplinary body of intellectual work that positions disability positively and complexly, interrogating rhetoric that disability is a deficit that should be remedied by experts.

Research can become more inclusive and diverse by framing both practices and artifacts.

Thank You!

Cynthia L Bennettwww.bennettc.com

Image Sources• https://twitter.com/accessfail• http://accessibility.hhs.texas.gov/cbt/Accessible_Office_WBT/4.html• http://feministculture.com/index.php/2015/08/28/living-with-an-invisible-

disability/• http://www.thinkinclusive.us/flexible-pathways-to-success-universal-design-

for-learning/• http://www.sligocil.ie/