Antonios Ktenidis, Katherine Runswick-Cole and Dan Goodley joined 26 researchers from across Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and the Faroe Islands. The course was convened by Professor Bjørg Kjær and Katrine Risbank Jensen, Danish School of Education, Aarhus Universitet.
This community of learners came together to reflect on the emerging theoretical work of established and emerging critical disability scholars and to consider a number of important issues. Papers were themed around discussions of the history of disability studies theory; the question of who has the right to do critical disability studies research and the importance of creative and co-produced methods in accessing the perspectives of people with learning disabilities and their families.
Antonios giving his presentation to an engaged and critical audience.
Mai Hartman, a PhD fellow who attended the conference, created sketches of each of us while we were teaching!
ID: Top left: Dan Goodley. Top Right: Katherine Runswick-Cole. Bottom Left: Katrine Risbank Jensen. Bottom Right: Antonios Ktenidis.
Pedagogy
Antonios offered a provocation at the start of the two days: How do we adhere to Anti-Ableist Pedagogical Principles? Responses including considerations around comportment, movement, access and engagement.
A slide from Antonios’ provocation listing the anti-ableist pedagogical principles.
Theory and methodology
We addressed two broad areas of consideration - Theorising Disability and Researching Disability - and were able to draw on the research of participants but also build on some of our international dialogues and collaboration; for example, the Online Symposia of Disability Matters. Emerging and recurring themes included:
- Positionality and accountability in research
- Co-production and theory-driven approaches to scholarship
- Explorations of the parasitic nature of critical disability studies with a host of disciplines including medicine, design, education, social pedagogy, social work, physiotherapy, arts and computing.
Space
Members of the Disability Matters research programme are planning for future online and face-to-face Summer and Winter Institutes. Working with our Danish colleagues offered great opportunities to think about pace, content, timings and access.
Mentoring and capacity-building
Disability Matters commitment to Global Leaders in Disability and Health Research Mentoring Programme involves building the capacities of disabled and disability+ researchers from across the world. As part of this, we are exploring in the early stages of planning for International Exchange: which will take the form of online and face-to-face sessions.
The responses of the researchers who attended the course were very positive, such as “Overwhelming (in a very positive way)!”; “I really enjoyed everything about today. And thank you for starting with the anti-ableist slide ❤️ overall it was really nice to be in a community that was not scared about being more “activistic” in their approaches”; “it has felt like an actually safe and brave space to learn about a complex topic”; “The most useful and interesting PhD course I have participated in”; “I feel at home and like I have found my people”.
Visiting Copenhagen was a lovely opportunity for us to continue to reconnect with Katrine who spent three months as a visiting doctoral student in the School of Education earlier this year. We may also have eaten one or two pastries on our travels!
Two trays of shiny Danish pastries
