Disability and fieldwork: A personal reflection

Abstract

This short Note offers a personal reflection about disability and fieldwork. It is not about how my disability, a long-term neurological condition, has affected my fieldwork. Rather, it is a series of thoughts about how my mobility issues might impact on my future fieldwork, but not only in a negative sense. The Note primarily discusses some of the ways that, potentially, my disability – which has changed how I interact with the world around me – might actually enhance my research and help to take it in new directions. I wrote the Note primarily for myself and for other researchers with disabilities, whether visible or hidden.