Enacting Reciprocity and Solidarity: Critical Access as Methodology

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the growing field of critical access studies, this article positions critical access as a research methodology that aligns with feminist praxis and disability politics. We begin by mapping our central concept in relation to literature on feminist disability studies, crip methodology, feminist methodology, and critical access. We then demonstrate critical access methodology in practice drawing on our collective research programs. Our first example comes from a workshop exploring citizen photojournalism as part of Stretching Our Stories and takes up non-linear and unverifiable journalistic accounts by disabled people. We follow this with an example from Practicing the Social, a three-day online artistic research and knowledge mobilisation event, which foregrounds the complexity of structuring pace and time. We conclude by suggesting that approaching critical access as methodology makes it possible to embrace moments of friction. Throughout this article, we argue that access, when taken up critically, becomes a transformative process that can contribute to the development of a feminist research methodology that supports research directed towards crip-feminist futurities.

KEYWORDS:

• Disability studies
• crip methodologies
• arts-informed research
• accessibility
• critical reflexivity‌
• critical access

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under grant numbers 890-0003-2020 and 890-0003-2020.

Notes on contributors

Eliza Chandler

Dr. Eliza Chandler is an associate professor in the School of Disability Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University, wherein she teaches courses on disability arts and culture, cultural representations of disability, leadership and community building, and intersectional activist movements.

Megan A. Johnson

Dr. Megan A. Johnson is a performance scholar, singer, arts administrator, and dramaturg. Megan holds a PhD in Theatre & Performance Studies from York University and is currently a Research Associate with Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice at the University of Guelph. Her research centres on disability art and performance, critical access studies, infrastructural politics, public and cultural policy, and environmental studies.

Chelsea Jones

Dr. Chelsea Temple Jones is an Associate Professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies. Dr. Jones holds a Ph.D. in Communication and Culture from Toronto Metropolitan and York Universities and an MA in Critical Disability Studies from York University. She currently holds a SSHRC Insight Development Grant that continues her study of the ways in which ableist, colonial gestures of ‘giving voice’ face resistance from young, disabled adults engaged in disability justice.

Elisabeth Harrison

Dr. Elisabeth Harrison is a Research Associate at Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice. They have a PhD from York University in Critical Disability Studies, where their dissertation research focused on trans, non-binary and gender nonconforming people's experiences with mental health care in Ontario.

Carla Rice

Dr. Carla Rice is the Tier I Canada Research Chair in Feminist Studies and Social Practice in the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences at the University of Guelph. Dr. Rice founded Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice and the Revisioning Differences Media Arts Laboratory (REDLAB), a cutting-edge community-embedded research creation centre and a state-of-the-art media lab, which seek to explore how communities can use arts-informed research/research creation methods to advance social wellbeing, equity, and justice.