Cripistemologies of Chronicity: A "coalition of the 'left-behinds'"

This annual lecture is part of the Philosophy of Disability and Difference Special Lecture Series. The series aims to bring to greater prominence and showcase to staff and students the scholarly benefits of engaging with the topics of disability and difference, including mental health and neurodiversity.

For this year's installment, we are delighted to welcome Sheffield's own Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril, who will be giving the following talk:

Cripistemologies of Chronicity: A "coalition of the 'left-behinds'"

Abstract

In this talk, I will argue for the use of cripistemologies to manage the uncertainty affecting people with chronic illnesses, and specifically people living with long-COVID, in the face of Evidence-Based Medicine models of biomedical knowledge. I will provide a brief introduction to crip theory and cripistemologies followed by an analysis of the ongoing experience of long-haulers to build a case for the necessity of an account of chronicity that is accountable to disabled people.

Bio

Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril (she/her) is a disabled philosopher of disability. Her work on relational ontology in Spinoza led her to critique UK models of shared decision-making in healthcare via feminist relational theory. In 2023, Élaina produced Massively Disabled: A long-COVID Research Podcast and she continues to develop a scholarly podcasting praxis. Currently, Élaina is a Research Associate for the Wellcome Anti-ableist Research Culture (WAARC) project in the iHuman Centre, Faculty of Social Sciences, at the University of Sheffield.