CALL FOR PAPERS
Intersectional Approaches to Disability and Race
Flipped webinar: 9 July 2020
Intersectional Disability & Neurodiversity Reading Groups
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: 1000-1500wds
○ 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
Photo by Shangyou Shi on Unsplash
The post-pandemic university 