The Intimate Lives of Disabled People

Working the edges of Posthuman disability studies: theorising with disabled young people with life‐limiting impairments

“…Moreover, our title pulls in disability studies: an interdisciplinary field of inquiry, scholarship and activism that seeks to quash damaging pathological discourses of disability to offer more socio‐cultural conceptions (see for an overview Goodley et al . , Goodley , Liddiard ). ‘Life‐limiting’ appears to concede these young people to medicalisation and is at odds with the transformative offerings of critical disability studies.…”

“I was Excited by the Idea of a Project that Focuses on those Unasked Questions” Co‐Producing Disability Research with Disabled Young People

“…Engelsrud (, p. 281) argues that the ‘researcher's body can be understood as both access and limitation to the acquisition of knowledge’. In her research into disabled sex/ualities (Liddiard, , ) identifies her disabled identity and material and physical embodiment of impairment as ever‐present within the research context. As such, disabled people can offer a unique ‘insider perspective’ (Kellett, ) that is critical towards furthering understandings of disability life and dis/ableism (ableism and disablism) (Goodley and others, ), particularly the emotional labours and affective politics of what it means to be disabled in such dehumanising austere times (Runswick‐Cole and others, ).…”

“…Such technologies have also been integral towards enabling new avenues through which to fight for justice in response to the routine institutional violence and avoidable deaths of disabled people (see Ryan, ). And Liddiard () has identified the Internet as a key space wherein disabled people can claim sexual and intimate citizenship and facilitate engagements with sex workers (Liddiard, ; Liddiard, ).…”

“…Thus, it's important to not homogenise the disability experience in relation to virtual technologies — digital exclusion remains a key form of oppression for many disabled people (Lane‐Fox, ; Watling, ). Digital exclusion is exacerbated as more and more of our lives ‘move’ online in what Watling (: 491) calls ‘visions of a digital future’: banking, food shopping, community‐building, activism, social communication, and finding friendship, love and intimacy and accessing sex (Liddiard, ). Adults with the label of learning disability, people with visual impairments and D/deaf people are routinely excluded and Othered in online and textual media — it is likely this has contributed to the lack of diversity in the Co‐Researcher Collective.…”

“…As a means to show the value of disabled young people's participation and co‐leadership of the research process, then, we have articulated the work of the Co‐Researcher Collective. Through discussing our successes and failures, we have centred accessible virtual research environments and online spaces as that which, in the case of our project, has enabled us to welcome diverse embodiments, levels of skills and knowledge, and enable meaningful leadership on the part of disabled young women Co‐Researchers — who are often shut out of leadership (Liddiard, ). We recommend, then, and encourage other critical disability researchers (and others) to embrace social research technologies.…”