Reconsidering Knowledge and Power: Reflections on Disability Communities and Disability Studies in Canada

Abstract

Reflecting on knowledge production offers imaginative ways to think about disability organizations and Disability Studies. Following Foucault, the concepts of knowledge and power are central to this discussion and in addressing these questions: what kinds of knowledge circulate in and around disability communities in Canada? How does this knowledge connect disability organizations and movements with the Canadian state and other institutions in society? What might the future hold for more creative and innovative knowledge production for disability studies, disability activism and social change? The article maintains that the politics of knowledge production are not so much about generating evidence in contrast to ignorance, as about multiple forms of knowledge interacting with, and struggling against each other within particular fields of power relationships. The marginal status of lived experience by people with disabilities is the outcome of a politics of reality, of who gets to decide what counts as evidence and who gets to decide the rules around knowledge production and dissemination.

Undergraduate Disabled Students as Knowledge Producers including Researchers: A Missed Topic in Academic Literature

“…Knowledge production in science is a political and social process [96]. Many academics discuss the politics of knowledge production [97][98][99][100][101][102][103] from various perspectives including that the politics of knowledge production is problematic in relation to disabled researchers [104] and disabled people [105]. Knowledge shapes society and is in need of governance [106][107][108][109].…”

Toward TechnoAccess: A narrative review of disabled and aging experiences of using technology to access the arts

“…With TechnoAccess in mind, and following critical disability studies traditions that aim to understand and trouble the politics around specific practices, including practices of critical accessibility mapping (Allan, 2020; Goodley et al, 2020;Hamraie, 2018;Prince, 2015), the research questions guiding this review were: What experiences and processes do disabled and aging users go through in accessing information and services? What frameworks are being developed (or in place) to support disabled and aging users in accessing information and services?…”

Empowering younger residents living in long-term care homes as co-researchers

“…Disability movements in the late 1970s catalyzed attention to the role of non-disabled-led research and knowledge production in the exploitation, alienation, and oppression of disabled people in the Global North (Shakespeare 2004). Since the 1990s, questions about disabled people's self-determination and autonomy over research questions and processes, and ownership of the knowledge produced, shaped Disability Studies scholarship and activism (Charlton 1998;Oliver 1992;Prince 2016). Participatory action research models and approaches offer a means of acknowledging and addressing power imbalances and supporting mutual knowledge exchange and reciprocity within the research process.…”