Disability Studies SoSS Research Collaboration (SRC) Reading Group

Dear Colleagues,

The Disability Studies SoSS Research Collaboration (SRC) would like to invite those interested in Disability Studies to

attend our next reading group:

Date: Wednesday, 21^st June 2023

Time: 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm

Location: Parramatta City Campus (1PSQ)

Macquarie Street, Parramatta

Level 5, PC-01.5.39 (LS)

PhD students, (Critical) Disability Studies Scholars, Activists and Advocates

The Disability Studies SoSS Research Collaboration (SRC) would like to invite those interested in Disability Studies to

attend our next reading group on 21st June 2023, from 1 - 2.30pm at the Parramatta City Campus.

In the next reading session, we will focus on a journal article by Tom Shakespeare and Sarah Richardson, which

explores the sexual politics of disability twenty years following the ground-breaking publication of The Sexual Politics of Disability: Untold Desires (1996).

Abstract

This paper follows up on qualitative interviews conducted with British disabled people in 1994–6, exploring how people’s lives and relationships have changed over twenty years (n = 8). The themes include imagery and identity, access to relationships, social context, and attitudes. Ageing brought greater self-acceptance, and also lower salience of impairment; but for some, it also brought co-morbid chronic health issues which made life more complicated. Respondents generally felt that social attitudes to disabled sexuality had not changed sufficiently, but also that UK austerity policies risked undermining hard-won independence and well-being.

The original book: The Sexual Politics of Disability (Shakespeare et al 1996) Shakespeare, T. W., Gillespie-Sells, K., & Davies, D. (1996). The sexual politics of disability: Untold desires.

Please follow the link to access the article.

The Sexual Politics of Disability, Twenty Years On (lshtm.ac.uk)

About the Disability Studies SoSS Research Collaboration

The Disability Studies SRC is a space for collaborative research that explores the social life of ‘disability’ from a range of diverse standpoints and frameworks. Driven by a desire to explore social understandings of ‘disability’ and what this means for everyday life for persons with disabilities, the group aims to co-produce high impact research that will facilitate inclusion, justice and disability rights. Disability is recognised as a complex social, political, cultural and diverse lived experience. The research of the group cuts across interests in some of the following research areas: disability and social inclusion/exclusion; disability and education; disability and ageing; disability and poverty; disability, violence, and marginality; ableism; disability, gender and sexualities; and disability, race, ethnicity, and gender.

The group’s work fosters collaborative research engagement with persons with disabilities and their organisations (Disabled Peoples Organisations) to actively facilitate research and disseminate knowledge that addresses disability, ableism, and disablism in public and private life.

The group is an interdisciplinary endeavour and works in collaboration with higher degree research students and early-, mid-, and late-career academics, providing opportunities for interdisciplinary learning, mentoring and research engagement and dissemination.

Accessibility: The reading group will be run monthly in hybrid mode, that is, face to face and zoom, simultaneously.

Auslan interpreters will be provided as requested by registered participants on a monthly basis.

Register through Eventbrite by 20th June 2023 via the web page below.