The participatory research approach in non‐Western countries: practical experiences from Central Asia and Zambia

This paper focuses on the application of the participatory research approach in non‐Western contexts. The aim is to provide critical insights into the participatory research discourse through an examination of its theory and practice based on our own experiences of using this approach in our doctoral research in five Central Asian countries and Zambia. Firstly, we summarise the published literature on the approach in both disability and development studies which are our academic disciplines. Secondly, we critically analyse some of the challenges we came across in applying participatory research in our doctoral studies in practice. By this we wish to contribute to making this approach more viable and to increase research participation by disabled persons in non‐Western contexts. Finally, based on our own experiences we give some suggestions for the use of the participatory research approach in non‐Western contexts.     

Unravelling Mr President’s nomad lands: travelling to interdisciplinary frontiers of knowledge in disability studies

In this article the aim is to challenge essentialist ontological assumptions surrounding the impairment category of ‘learning difficulties’ as it was previously conceptualized in social theory and practice. I ground my knowledge production in self‐advocates connected to the self‐advocacy movement in Flanders (Belgium) and in critical feminist disability studies. Drawing upon the post‐structuralist feminist Rosi Braidotti, who introduced nomadology as a new figuration of layered, embedded and embodied subjectivity, I bring the illustrative nomadic subjectivity of the president of the self‐advocacy network to the public eye. In order to allow disability scholars and activists re‐inscribe new scenarios in our contemporary discourse and shared culture, I appeal for an interpretation of the impaired body and mind as a socio‐political field.     

The Government of Disability: economics and power in welfare and work

The term government of disability refers to the ways that the lived experiences of people with accredited impairments are contextualised by economics and power in welfare and work. This paper explores how far a multiple perspective that develops a framework of the government of disability and the ontological ambiguity of impairment can take us towards contemporary understandings of disability, impairment and change in the UK.

The term the ontological ambiguity of impairment describes the ways that understandings of impairment have become more ambiguous, contributing to greater insecurities and fragmentation because of key changes in the government of disability. However, I argue that wider explanations of economic and power relationships are also necessary to develop a critical perspective of the contemporary government of disability, economics, and power in welfare and work.     

The idea of philosophical sociology

This article introduces the idea of philosophical sociology as an enquiry into the relationships between implicit notions of human nature and explicit conceptualizations of social life within sociology. Philosophical sociology is also an invitation to reflect on the role of the normative in social life by looking at it sociologically and philosophically at the same: normative self‐reflection is a fundamental aspect of sociology's scientific tasks because key sociological questions are, in the last instance, also philosophical ones. For the normative to emerge, we need to move away from the reductionism of hedonistic, essentialist or cynical conceptions of human nature and be able to grasp the conceptions of the good life, justice, democracy or freedom whose normative contents depend on more or less articulated conceptions of our shared humanity. The idea of philosophical sociology is then sustained on three main pillars and I use them to structure this article: (1) a revalorization of the relationships between sociology and philosophy; (2) a universalistic principle of humanity that works as a major regulative idea of sociological research, and; (3) an argument on the social (immanent) and pre‐social (transcendental) sources of the normative in social life. As invitations to embrace posthuman cyborgs, non‐human actants and material cultures proliferate, philosophical sociology offers the reminder that we still have to understand more fully who are the human beings that populate the social world.     

Emancipating play: dis/abled children,development and deconstruction

This paper reflects critically on the meaning of play, especially as it relates to disabled children and their experiences. We explore the close alliance of play to cognitive and social development, particularly in the case of psychologies of development, and reveal a dominant discourse of the disabled child as a non‐playing object that requires professional therapeutic intervention. We argue that this pathologisation of play on the part of disabled children is closely tied to normalisation of childhood, in which non‐normal bodies are increasingly expected to be governed and corrected not only by professionals but also by parents/carers. In order to rescue more enabling visions of the disabled child and their play we turn to three perspectives – the new sociology of childhood; social oppression theories of disability; critical developmental psychology. These resources, we suggest, allow us to reconfigure what we mean by play and disability in a contemporary climate that celebrates competition and marketisation over the intrinsic potentialities of all children. We argue that how we conceive play will per se undermine or promote forms of inclusive research, policy and practice.     

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

In this article, we detail the politics and practicalities of co‐produced disability research with disabled young people with life‐limiting and life‐threatening impairments. We centre an ESRC‐funded arts‐informed co‐produced research project that has brought together a Co‐Researcher Collective of disabled young people. Co‐production is an established approach; however, our co‐researchers have led us to develop inclusive research practices that engage with online social research methods in innovative ways. As we detail our experiences, we aim to encourage disability studies researchers and others to adopt virtual environments when researching with and for the lives of disabled people.     

Social change,premarital nonfamily experiences,and marital dynamics

We investigate the effects of nonfamily experiences on marital relationships in a setting characterized by high levels of arranged marriage until recently. Drawing on theoretical frameworks for the study of families and social change, we argue that the expansion of opportunities for nonfamily experiences will increase the likelihood of marital relationships based on an emotional bond between husbands and wives. Using data from 3,724 individuals in rural Nepal, we find consistent effects of educational experiences across multiple dimensions of marriage. These effects point toward the spread of education as a stimulus to marriages characterized by higher levels of love and discussions between spouses, and lower levels of conflict and spouse abuse. Results suggest that studies of marital dynamics in non‐Western settings provide a fruitful avenue for new research on marriage.     

Looking inside the bag of tools: creating research encounters with parents with an intellectual disability

This paper examines the development of fieldwork methodology in a study that investigated the parenting experiences and parent support needs of a group of parents with an intellectual disability. It considers the ways in which the original planning for the project changed as the fieldwork unfolded, requiring adaptations to our methodological expectations and in the process deepening our understanding of the phenomena we were studying and reinforcing for us the importance of relationships in fieldwork‐based research. Three themes in particular are considered that became central to this research: research relationships; safety for participants/positioning of the researcher; suspending assumptions about impairment and disability and influences on life experiences.     

Disability,caregiving and interpellation: migrant and non‐migrant families of children with disabilities in urban Australia

The process of interpellation (and its opposite, misinterpellation) is taken as a metaphor for understanding the lived experience of personal difference. This research focuses on two interpellative experiences: disability and migrant status. Parents of children with moderate to profound intellectual disabilities were asked about their engagement with the community; their access to support programs; and their sense of well‐being. Responses were divided between the non‐migrants (who were misinterpellated once) and migrants (who were misinterpellated twice). Were the migrant parents doubly isolated due to migrant status and carer status? What differences were there between migrant and non‐migrant responses to their parental experience? Although migrant parents were more negative about their children’s future, they rated themselves as equally happy and socially connected as non‐migrant parents.     

Gender and Disability in Male‐Dominated Occupations: A Social Relational Model

Evidence from male‐dominated sectors points to high levels of disability and the disabling nature of working environments. However, research of this nature assumes a medical model of disability that does not account for the social construction of disability or the lived experiences of disabled employees. Using data from seven focus groups (n = 44) and semi‐structured interviews with professional transport employees with life‐long hidden ‘impairments’, including dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, ADD/ADHD and Asperger syndrome (n = 22), this paper explores the lived experiences of men and women working in a sector traditionally dominated by men, the transport industry. Key themes include homosociality, public–private divide and the impact of changing work practices. Further, the data revealed how those with hidden ‘impairments’ in part construct their identities in relation to both non‐disabled colleagues and those considered stereotypically representing disability (wheelchair users). This study furthers understandings of the relationality of gender and disability in the workplace, and the lived experiences of disabled employees.     

The Experience of Academic Non‐Mothers in the Gendered University

In this article we report on data from an empirical study concerned to explore the experience of women academics managing non‐motherhood and work in the gendered university. Although there is a growing body of work on the gendered experience of higher education in general and the experience of mothers as academics in particular, as yet there is little on non‐mothers and work. Drawing on our data we suggest that non‐mothers as well as mothers are affected by the ideology of motherhood and this has consequences for non‐mothers as workers within the academy. In addition to being perceived by students and other staff as ‘natural’ carers because they are women, academic non‐mothers are expected to put in the time and energy that mothers can not. However, as our data demonstrate, non‐mothers often have caring responsibilities outside the institution too. Overall, we argue that non‐motherhood needs to be recognized for the complex identity that it is.     

Being disabled: towards a critical social ontology for disability studies

In Disability Studies the question of ontology is establishing itself as a live issue. Whilst there are many arguments and tendencies emerging from this literature, this paper identifies and critically examines an approach to the ontological question in disability studies that is based on an appeal to frailty as a universal characteristic of humanity. The argument builds on the relatively familiar claim that everyone is only temporarily able-bodied. This approach is exemplified in recent work by Bryan Turner and by Tom Shakespeare and Nick Watson. I argue that their universalistic approach is problematic. While it may constitute a theoretical means of ameliorating the existential negativity associated with being disabled it does so at the expense of disability identity. What is required is a critical social ontology that problematises non-disablement and exposes the forms of invalidation that lie at the heart of disabling culture.     

“Whose Side Are We On?” Revisited: Narrative Power,Narrative Inequality,and a Politics of Narrative Humanity

In 1967, Howard S. Becker gave a widely discussed and polemical presidential address entitled “Whose Side Are We On?” Here he introduced the idea of the hierarchy of credibility. Briefly reviewing the article, I suggest a little of how the world has moved on since then. The core of my analysis links symbolic interactionism to ideas of narrative power, narrative inequality, and narrative othering, sketching out a frame of generic forms of narrative power: domination, exclusion, negotiation, and resistance. I stress the dynamics of the subordinated standpoint and narrative othering. Drawing from a wide range of empirical examples where these processes are featured, I suggest many of us tacitly work with such ideas in our studies. I end by returning to Becker's question—Whose side are we on?—and answer: the side of humanity. Just what we mean by humanity raises contentious value claims, especially in these posthuman times. But understanding our humanities and the value challenge they pose provides the necessary prerequisite for answering Becker's question. From this, political action can flow, and a politics of humanity can be cultivated.     

Examining concepts of power and agency in research with young people

Concepts of power and agency have become increasingly prominent in the youth studies literatures and related research. A focus of the research to date has been an examination of how a better understanding of young people's lived experiences can reveal possibilities for young people's agency to emerge. Despite increased interest in the term agency, much less has been said about how the concept is defined and recognized in research with young people, including what the concept may entail but crucially, how the term is linked to and underpinned by the related concept of power. This paper seeks to contribute to our understanding of power and agency as utilized in research with young people. The discussion that follows identifies the possible ways in which different theoretical positions shape our understanding of how power and agency are investigated and how these understandings inform the ways we interpret young people's perspectives and actions as holding potential for ‘agency’. Drawing on recent empirical examples, we consider how varying interpretations of power and/or agency shape not only the ways in which young people's agentic experiences are theorized (and the related ontological and epistemological assumptions these positions imply) but also the presumed effects of that agency.     

‘Writing’ aesth‐ethics on the child's body: Developing maternal subjectivities through clothing our children

What could we learn from the ‘aesth‐ethic’ practices of clothing children? The dual focus of this article is to analyse the everyday clothing of children as well as the development of maternal subjectivities as relevant to discussions of aesthetic labour in the field of organization studies. Drawing upon the literatures on aesthetic labour and maternal subjectivities in the field of organization studies, we develop a fine‐grained understanding of the relatively intense and effortful maternal labours that clothing our children encapsulates. Methodologically, we use autoethnographic diary notes combined with feminist ‘memory work’ to analyse clothing as an affectual form of storytelling or ‘writing’ on the child's body that (re)produces certain sociocultural understandings about mothering, sustainability and childhood(s) in a Nordic context embraced by western consumerism. By considering the limitations of the approach taken to drawing wider conclusions about motherhoods, identity construction and clothing, this article advances our understanding of the development of particular middle‐class maternal subjectivities seeking to problematize mass consumerism through childrenswear, and how idea(l)s concerning gender and childhood(s) are being (re)produced in and through clothing.     

Feeling disability: theories of affect and critical disability studies

This paper explores connections between affect studies and critical disability studies. Our interest in affect is sparked by the beginnings of a new research project that seeks to illuminate the lives, hopes and desires of young people with ‘life-limiting’ or ‘life-threatening’ impairments. Cultural responses to these young people are shaped by dominant discourses associated with lives lived well and long. Before commencing our empirical work with young people we use this paper to think through how we might conceptualise affect and disability. We present three themes; ontological invalidation in neoliberal-able times; affect aliens and crip killjoys; disability and resistant assemblages.     

Gender,Foreignness and Academia: An Intersectional Analysis of the Experiences of Foreign Women Academics in UK Business Schools

This article explores the experiences of a growing but hitherto under‐researched category of academics employed within UK higher education: women of non‐UK origin. Drawing on an intersectional approach, we examine how gender and foreignness act as dynamic, interrelating categories in producing particular subjectivities in the context of UK business schools. We employ a qualitative methodology based on narrative interviews with 31 foreign women academics. In the analysis, we outline the broader global forces that have shaped their trajectories in choosing the UK as their destination, and the place of gender and foreignness in the participants' narratives of their experience. Our findings point to how the discourse of internationalization conceals intra‐categorical differences among non‐national staff, further supported by a merit‐based system that promotes an individualized view. However, participants' narratives provide examples of how gender and foreignness are mobilized in different ways by different actors — including themselves — in the production of social locations. As such, the paper contributes to critical debates regarding the academic workplace and the changing conditions of UK academia.     

Gender,technology and the ablenational Paralympic body politic

ABSTRACT

The Paralympic games is a pedagogic, pervasive, political, powerful, and ‘popular’ cultural site where the heightened visibility of disability bring into being specific forms of disability as they articulate within cultures, institutions and practices. Regarded as a ‘positive charge’ by Stuart Hall, the Paralympics intends to challenge the devalued disabled body politic of typical disability representation. This has been stimulated by the entry of Channel 4 as the UK Paralympic rights holders in 2012 which has seen greater media coverage of certain technologically enhanced cyborgian parasport bodies and an emerging celebrity / sexualized disability culture. This contemporary moment in disability representation provides a compelling space in which to (re-)address the gendered nature of hyper-visible Parasport hybrids, their potential to disrupt ‘normative’ relations of power, and, the wider impact on disability politics in a neoliberalised culture of widening and affective circuits of bodily inclusion and control. Drawing on an integrated content and textual analysis of 90?h of Paralympic programming from the Rio 2016 Games we highlight two emblematic segments so as to enhance our appreciation of contemporary disabled politics as it intersects with gender, technology and nation. We analyse these emblematic segments at the intersection of critical disability studies, cultural studies and sport, using concept of ablenationalism to highlight the extent certain technological capacitated parasport bodies perform gendered representational work as part of the seductive apparatus of neoliberal micro-governance suggestive of an emerging ecology of disability-gender relations. In doing so, we highlight the Paralympic contradictions and interrogate the assumed ‘positive charge’ of the contemporary (re-)presentation of disability.     

Disability studies after the ontological turn: a return to the material world and material bodies without a return to essentialism

Over recent decades, poststructuralist theories have allowed critical disability scholars to challenge essentialist understandings of the human species and to contest discourses which divide humans into ‘normal’/‘impaired’ subjects with respect to a wide – and ever expanding – range of corporeal and cognitive traits. For critics, however, these theories are deeply flawed. By focusing primarily on language, poststructuralism shifts our critical attention away from the often harsh material realities of life for disabled people. This has led some to turn to critical realism and to effectively re-essentialise impairment. In this article, I wish to consider an alternative approach. I suggest that the recent ‘ontological turn’ in social theory has seen the emergence of new-materialist approaches – including Deleuze and Guattari’s ontology of assemblage and methodology of assemblage analysis – which allow us to consider disability as a material phenomenon without a return to essentialism.