Remembering Sally
The Cripping Breath team is very sad to announce the death of our incredible research team member, Sally Whitney-Mitchell. Sally was the project’s Lead Co-researcher - an integral role through which she was due to lead a small team of community-based researchers with lived experience.
We have been lucky enough to work with Sally at the University of Sheffield where, since 2017, she was an academic researcher. Sally had a special interest in the lives of disabled young people and, in particular, the impact of faith in their lives. Sally was a much loved member of the team of researchers on Living Life to the Fullest: life; death; disability and the human (ESRC ES/P001041/1), as part of which she co-authored the book Living Life to the Fullest: Disability, Youth and Voice.
Sally went on to work on projects with Youth Employment UK and with the disability charity Scope. She also led the Canine Care project which was a collaboration with Canine Partners, who had introduced her to her beloved assistance dog, Ethan.
She was also a member of the research institute - iHuman - an institute for the study of the human. Sally was, in many ways, a living embodiment of the study of the human condition - she was kind, generous, would challenge others but do so with kindness. She was a wonderful researcher and thinker.
We also remember how much she loved social theory - we offer a list of her publications below. She read widely and reflected on what she read through her own experiences. She challenged all of us to think differently about disability, life, death and what it means to be human. She also changed the way the University works, demanding that everyone think differently about what a ‘research job’ might look like, and how it can be done remotely and even, at times, from bed. Much of this radical practice is now embedded in Cripping Breath as routine.
Sally was so excited to begin work on Cripping Breath and we are so saddened that she will not be here to do the work she planned. Sally contributed so much to the project design, planning, our approaches to co-production, which are wrapped up in an ethic of care, and so much more. It’s hard to reflect the extent of our loss in this short post, but we are deeply committed to carrying her spirit with us in all the work that we do in the project, and in disability studies at Sheffield. She will be remembered and what she taught us will continue to shape the work that we do.
Thank you, Sally.
References
Books
Liddiard, K., Whitney-Mitchell, S., Evans, K., Watts, L., Spurr, R., Vogelmann, E., Runswick-Cole, K. and Goodley, D., 2022. Living life to the fullest: Disability, youth and voice. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Book chapters
Earle, S., Whitney-Mitchell, S. and Blackburn, M., 2024. Involving people with life-shortening conditions in research: Perspectives on co-production. In Sex, Intimacy and Living with Life-Shortening Conditions (pp. 159-172). Routledge.
Runswick-Cole, K., Goodley, D., and Liddiard, K. and Whitney, S. 2023. “It’s about quality of life rather than length of life”: using and refusing policy discourse in the lives of children labelled with life-limiting Robinson, S., Fisher, K.R. eds. Research Handbook on Disability Policy, Edward Elgar, UK. ISBN 9781800373648
Earle, S., Blackburn, M., Chambers, L., Downing, J., Flemming, K., Hale, J., Marston, H.R., O'Dell, L., Sinason, V. and Whitney-Mitchell, S., 2023. Disruptions, relationships and intimate futures: The unintended consequences of pandemic control. In Sex, Intimacy and Living with Life-Shortening Conditions (pp. 110-125). Routledge.
Earle, S., Whitney-Mitchell, S. and Blackburn, M., 2023. 11 Involving people with life-shortening conditions in research. Sex, Intimacy and Living with Life-Shortening Conditions, p.147.
Goodley, D., Liddiard, K., Runswick-Cole, K., Watts, L., Whitney, S., Dobbin, H. and Moss, C., 2022. Posthumanist Disability Studies. In Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism (pp. 793-822). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Liddiard, K., Runswick-Cole, K., Goodley, D., Spurr, R., Whitney, S., Vogelmann, E., Watts, L. and Evans, K., 2022. “Why Would I Go to Hospital if It’s Not Going to Try and Save Me?”: Disabled Young People’s Experiences of the COVID-19 Crisis. In Being Human During COVID-19 (pp. 60-66). Bristol University Press.
Journal articles
Evans, K. and Whitney-Mitchell, S., 2023. The Hidden Work of Self-directed Support: A Seldom Heard Reality from the Perspective of Two Disabled Women. The British Journal of Social Work, 53(3), pp.1735-1741.
Earle, S., Blackburn, M., Chambers, L., Downing, J., Flemming, K., Hale, J., Marston, H.R., O’Dell, L., Sinason, V., Watts, L. and Whitney, S., 2022. ‘Whose life are they going to save? It’s probably not going to be mine!’ Living with a Life-Shortening Condition During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic: A Grounded Theory Study of Embodied Precarity. Qualitative Health Research, 32(14), pp.2055-2065.
Whitney, S., Liddiard, K., Goodley, D., Runswick-Cole, K., Vogelmann, E., Evans, K., Watts (MBE), L., and Aimes, C. 2019. ‘Working the edges of Posthuman disability studies: Theorising with young disabled people with life-limiting impairments’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 41: 8, 1473–1487
Liddiard, K., Runswick‐Cole, K., Goodley, D., Whitney, S., Vogelmann, E. and Watts MBE, L., 2019. “I was excited by the idea of a project that focuses on those unasked questions” co‐producing disability research with disabled young people. Children & Society, 33(2), pp.154-167.