Enacting Equity in Higher Education through Critical Disability Studies: A Critical Community Self-Study

Abstract

In this critical community self-study, we describe the development of the Interdisciplinary Disability and Inclusion Research Collaborative (IDIRC) at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. IDIRC is a self-organizing collective involving eleven faculty, students and staff devoted to Critical Disability Studies (CDS) and the relationships between CDS, practice and social change. We ask: What are the social relations, commitments, activities, and research needs of this university's researchers, students and staff in relation to disability and inclusion? Through a constant comparative analysis of interview data we surfaced themes related to the social relations, commitments, activities and research needs of our members. Our findings and discussion illustrate how similar cross-disciplinary groups might build inclusive spaces, which unite staff, graduate students and faculty towards disrupting normativity, interdisciplinarity, and praxis within and beyond academia. IDIRC attends to the embodiment of values and theoretical perspectives that are relational, diversity-positive, intersectional and advocacy-oriented.

Romance, Relationships, and Rights: Ethical Considerations and Dilemmas in a Research-Based Theater Project With Self-Advocate Co-Creators and Actors

“…Our work is centrally informed by CDS. Such a stance questions and problematizes normative assumptions and privileged discourses, particularly medical practices/discourses, that produce disability as a pathological condition residing within individuals’ bodies and minds (Goodley, 2017; Linton, 2006; Schnellert et al, 2019). In fact, CDS rejects individual and deficit-based understandings of disability, and rather affirms disability as a social/political category that serves and functions as a basis for political activism (Linton, 2006, p. 163).…”

“…6). CDS aims to expose and interrogate “the ways in which disability has been ‘imbued with meaning(s)’ and [re-assign] meanings that are ‘consistent with a sociopolitical analysis’” (Linton, 1998, p. 10) (as cited in Schnellert et al, 2019, para. 9) and social action.…”

“You have the right to love and be loved”: participatory theatre for disability justice with self-advocates

“…As a result, those with IDD are excluded (Gill, 2015: 41). Positioning IDD as a valued part of human diversity upsets normative assumptions and promotes pluralistic embodiments of sexual agency recognizing the privileges and sexual rights that ableism affords non-disabled persons (Schnellert et al, 2019). Individuals with IDD are demanding and reclaiming their rights.…”