Critical Disability Studies as method: new intersections and global outlooks

Datum
04. Novem­ber 2025 

CfP for Pan­el at Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies Con­fer­ence 2026

Call for papers for a pan­el at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies Con­fer­ence 2026: „Crit­i­cal Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies as method: new inter­sec­tions and glob­al outlooks”
Con­fer­ence Theme: Nav­i­gat­ing the Chang­ing Land­scape of Disability/Studies
https://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/conference/
Pro­posed Pan­el Title: Crit­i­cal Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies as method: new inter­sec­tions and glob­al outlooks.
Pan­el con­venors: Jhu­lia Dos San­tos, Dr Rosamund Grein­er, Dr Damarie Kalon­zo and Dr Lau­ren Avery.

Abstract

Crit­i­cal Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies (CDS) is a diverse and capa­cious area of the­o­ry and analy­sis that draws con­nec­tions with many oth­er bod­ies of social the­o­ry (crit­i­cal race the­o­ry, inter­sec­tion­al fem­i­nism, queer the­o­ry, decolo­nial and post colo­nial the­o­ry to name a few). CDS schol­ars have recent­ly called for broad­en­ing the use of dis­abil­i­ty as an ana­lyt­i­cal cat­e­go­ry to say some­thing wider about the world. Schalk and Kim (2020, p.37–38) pro­mote ‚employ­ing dis­abil­i­ty stud­ies as a lens to ana­lyze the inter­sect­ing sys­tems of ableism, het­eropa­tri­archy, white suprema­cy, and cap­i­tal­ist vio­lence, par­tic­u­lar­ly as they assign val­ue or lack there­of to cer­tain body­minds.’ Sim­i­lar­ly, Good­ley (2016) sug­gests that ‘dis­abil­i­ty is the space from which to think through a host of polit­i­cal, the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal issues that are rel­e­vant to all’. 

Schalk renewed her call for using CDS as a method­ol­o­gy in her address to the PGR cohort at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies Con­fer­ence 2024 con­fer­ence. Rather than lim­it­ing the field to those who iden­ti­fy as dis­abled, CDS can be used as a lens to explore multiple/ inter­sect­ing exclu­sions (Schalk, 2017). We ask there­fore, what can CDS tell us about those who have been polit­i­cal­ly exclud­ed from the cat­e­go­ry of ‘dis­abled’, either through being con­struct­ed as com­pul­so­ri­ly able­bod­ied (such as par­ents, care­givers, and health­care providers) or inher­ent­ly deviant or defi­cient (for exam­ple, racialised and colonised peo­ple, immi­grants and refugees, house­less peo­ple) by neolib­er­al gov­ern­ments, colo­nial regimes, or devel­op­men­tal­ist agen­cies and INGOs.

Tak­ing CDS per­spec­tives on dis­abil­i­ty case stud­ies as a start­ing point, this sym­po­sium will explore what CDS can show about broad­er social struc­tures that inter­con­nect with ableism. This sym­po­sium aims to car­ry on the Crit­i­cal Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies tra­di­tion using dis­abil­i­ty as a space from which to think, organ­ise, write and col­lab­o­rate. We invite sub­mis­sions from ear­ly career researchers (includ­ing PGRs) employ­ing CDS in their work in any field or dis­ci­pline, and par­tic­u­lar­ly those under-rep­re­sent­ed in dis­abil­i­ty dis­course. We also wel­come inter­est in col­lab­o­rat­ing towards a Spe­cial Issue on this theme as a result of this symposium.

Sub­mis­sions: Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words to rosamund.greiner@ucl.ac.uk by 4th November. 

About us: We are a wel­com­ing group of inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Post­grad­u­ate and Ear­ly Career researchers who employ Crit­i­cal Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies with­in our research and advo­ca­cy work. 

Ref­er­ences

-Good­ley, D. 2016. Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies: An Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Intro­duc­tion. 2nd ed. Lon­don: Sage., Pp. 157.
‑Schalk, S, Kim, J. 2020. Inte­grat­ing race, trans­form­ing fem­i­nist dis­abil­i­ty stud­ies. Signs. 46(1). Pp. 31–55.
‑Schalk, S. 2017. Crit­i­cal Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies as Method­ol­o­gy. Lat­er­al. 6(1). Pp. 1–4.

Call for papers (PDF): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ky532xUneamiXVjvI91qWbxSQ7MQT4Pe/view?usp=sharing