CFP: Intersectional Approaches to Disability and Race
Call for Papers
Intersectional Approaches to Disability and Race
Flipped webinar: 9 July 2020
Deadline abstracts: 28 February 2021
Recent times have emphasised again how society is marked by the interconnectedness of racism and ableism. Black and brown disabled and non-disabled people and white disabled and non-disabled people face different barriers and norms and have different disability and race experiences and expressions in terms of, for instance, social inequalities, time, social relations, ideology, everyday experiences, space, institutions, fiction, story telling, and performativity. While the intersectional exploration of disability and race is a small but growing area of study, this intersection has received insufficient attention in disability studies, in race studies as well as in intersectionality studies. Intersectional knowledge construction around the interrelatedness of race and disability and racism and ableism, and which rejects the medical or deficiency model of disability, is urgent.
The Intersectional Disability and Neurodiversity Reading Groups seek to contribute to this growing body of work by organising the flipped webinar Intersectional Approaches to Disability and Race (see below for an explanation of how a flipped webinar works). We invite scholars, postgraduate researchers, community activists and others to present on the junction of disability and ableism and race and racism, as well as their interrelatedness with other social categories.
Abstracts can be in any of the following or other topics:
Positionality: disability and race critical reflexivity
Critical race theory, disability and art
Disability and race in unconscious bias
Access, expectations and detention in education
The role of neurodiversity in racial profiling and the prison industrial complex
Representations and the (traditional and online) media
Whiteness, ableism and reproductive rights
‘British’ norms, white hegemony and independent living
Queer, crip and decolonial subjectivities
Islamophobia, Prevent and the dis/abled bodymind
Race, interdependence and cultures of care
The charity model of disability in policy and international development
Disabled refugees and the ‘bona fide migrant’
Intersectional invisibilisation and marginalisation in racial justice and disability justice movements
Racialised heteronormativity in thinking about disabled families
Abled whiteness in making sense of ageing
Race and disability outside the limits of the LGBTQIA+ imagination
Racialised norms, linguistic barriers and cultural inaccessibility
Feminist leadership: organising different disability and race futures
The scrounger narrative: race, disability and poverty
White and abled norms in thinking about social change
Emerging methodologies in disability and race research
Experiencing and resisting ableism and racism in the pandemic
Not counting: the statistics of the intersectional absence of disability and race
Nothing about us, without us: empowerment from the racialised disabled and disabled racialised margins
Black Lives Matter, disability and community
Intersectional understandings of hate crime
Fantasising about disability and race in arts, comics and performances
This is a neurodivergent-led and disabled-led webinar, and neurodivergent and disabled graduate students and scholars, activists and community-members, as well as others presenting from marginalised perspectives, are particularly encouraged to submit an abstract.
How does a ‘flipped webinar’ work?
The traditional format of a webinar is that a few people present their work through a video-platform – often with powerpoint slides. Instead, in a ‘flipped webinar’ each participant submits a short video or written blog post some time before the webinar (find the guidelines and the timeline below). These video and written blog posts will be uploaded online. Panellists as well as the audience will have time to read and watch the blog posts before the webinar.
At the start of the webinar, the facilitator will read the prepared summary of the main argument of the blog posts. The rest of the webinar will be dedicated to a facilitated conversation: panellists can comment on and discuss each other’s blog posts, ask each other questions, as well as respond to questions from the audience.
How does the submission process work?
This webinar has a phased submission process. There are two ways to do this:
Those who would like to receive some support can submit an abstract-in-progress first, before they submit their actual abstract. They can also submit a blog-post-in-progress first, before they submit their actual blog post. The organising team can discuss these works-in-progress and provide comments for improvement.
Those who feel comfortable submitting a completed abstract and blog post, can do so at the respective final deadline dates.
Timeline
The timeline of the submission-process consists of four phases, with the following dates (all 11.59pm UK time):
1 February 2021: Deadline abstracts-in-progress (optional)
8 February 2021: The organising team returns comments on the abstracts-in-progress
1 March 2021: Deadline abstracts
15 March 2021: Decision abstracts
3 May 2021: Submission blog-posts-in-progress (optional)
17 May 2021: The organising team returns comments on the blog-posts-in-progress
21 June 2021: Submission final blog posts
1 July 2021: Blog posts are uploaded
1-8 July: Reading blog posts by panellists (and others)
9 July 2021: Webinar
Guidelines abstracts-in-progress and abstracts
Information to include in your submission:
Name and email address
Blog post title
Abstract
Presentation type: written or video blog post
Department & university, organisation and/or community
Time zone
Access needs
Submission blog-post-in-progress?: yes / no
Abstract (pick one format):
Written length: 150-200 words
Spoken length: 2-3min
Point of attention:
Submissions do not rely on the medical or deficiency model of disability
Submissions use language and terms (e.g. identify-first or person-first language) appropriate to the context
Deadlines:
Abstracts-in-progress: 1 February 2021, 11.59pm UK time
Final submission abstract: 1 March 2021, 11.59pm UK time
Email your submission to: disabilityandracewebinar AT gmail.com
Guidelines video and written blog-posts-in-progress and blog posts
Blog post length (pick one):
Written blog post: wds
Video blog post: 9-12min
Summary of the argument: 50-75 words (in addition to the blog post)
Format: Arial 12
Referencing: use URLs [for example, see Post-Pandemic University]
Point of attention:
Submissions do not rely on the medical or deficiency model of disability
Submissions use language and terms (e.g. identify-first or person-first language) appropriate to the context
Email your submission to: disabilityandracewebinar AT gmail.com
Further information
Organisation: organising team Intersectional Disability & Neurodiversity Reading Groups
Email: disabilityandracewebinar AT gmail.com
Website: https://intersect-nd-dis-rg.wixsite.com/rg-site/calls
PAST CALLS
Webinar 'Feminist Perspectives on Neurodiversity and Neuronormativity,' 29 January 2021
In recent years, there has been an exponential growth of intersectional theory, feminist and trans(feminist) activism, and an emerging field of neurodiversity studies. Neurodiversity is a social and political category that refers to neurodivergent people – i.e. dyslexics, ADHDers, dyspraxics, Tourette(r)s, dyscalculics and autistics – and neurotypical people. Rejecting the medical or individual model of disability, a neurodiversity perspective recognises that neurodiversity functions as an organising principle of society: ‘neuronormativity’ – i.e. norms of neurotypicality and neuroableism – structurally privileges neurotypical people and disadvantages neurodivergent people. At the same time, there is an increasing intersectional awareness of how neurodiversity – including both neurodivergence and neurotypicality – is marked by gender and cis-trans specificities and inequalities as well as by race, class, sexuality and, for instance, geopolitical location. This understanding, then, does not approach neurodiversity ‘neutrally’: its baseline is to support struggles against not only neuro-ableism (including saneism and ableism) and sexism and misogyny, but also anti-black and other forms of racism, Islamophobia, transphobia and trans-exclusion, classism, and sexuality-based oppression. However, there remains a gap in knowledge production about these complexities.
As part of the webinar series Feminist Perspectives on Disability, the Feminist Studies Association and the Neurodiversity Reading Group London invite submissions to the webinar ‘Feminist Perspectives on Neurodiversity and Neuronormativity’. Submissions are invited to explore (1) feminist, queer, trans and, more generally, intersectional explorations of neurodiversity – e.g. of neurodiversity studies, the neurodiversity movement, neurotypicality, the conceptualisation of neurodiversity, of neuroableism and neuronorms, and of neurodivergent experiences and expressions as well as (2) neurodivergent understandings of feminist – queer, trans and, more generally, intersectional – theory, organising and living. Submissions can concern neurodiversity – both neurodivergence and neurotypicality – in general terms or discuss specific neurodivergent groups (e.g. dyspraxics, ADHDers, Tourette(r)s).
Topics to be addressed might include, but are not limited by, the following:
Gendered norms in the theorisation of neurodiversity
Hegemonic cis/masculinity and the neurodiversity movement
A feminist history of neuroableism
The neurodiversification of intersectional theory
Feminist Global South perspectives on understanding neurodiversity
Queering neurodivergent time and space
Neurodivergent female entrepreneurship
A sensory exploration of gendered dance
The whiteness of research on neurodivergent boys
Decolonising the neuronormativity of Modern Man
Neurodivergent mothering & mothering neurodivergence
Gender, neurodiversity and social media activism
The gendered neuroableism of linearity
Intersectional neuronormativity in mental health therapy
The pathologisation of neurodivergent women
Transphobia in the name of protecting neurodivergent children
Neurotypical cis/gender representations in literature
Intersectional understandings of the criminalisation of neurodivergence
The pedagogy of neuroableism and sexism
Neurodiversifying feminist research methods
This is a neurodivergent-led webinar, and neurodivergent graduate students and scholars, neurodivergent activists and community-members, as well as others presenting from marginalised perspectives, are particularly encouraged to submit an abstract.
We accept live presentations as well as pre-recorded presentations (12-15min). For the purpose of making the webinar most accessible, you will be required to submit your presentation (pre-recorded or slides & transcript) two days before the webinar takes place. There will be an option to record your presentation so that it will be available online afterwards. After acceptance, you will receive guidelines on how to make your presentation most accessible. We will also adjust the organisation of the webinar as much as possible to your access needs.