“This is NOT okay:” Building a creative collective against academic ableism

Abstract

Disabled university students, as well as disabled faculty, staff, and other community members, face an array of challenges in conducting their studies and in navigating their daily lives. The authors relay their experiences as disabled members of a university community, and recount the work they did to gather information about the experiences of disabled people at the university, and to find a group intended to creatively and supportively address the shortcomings of the institution in meeting the needs of disabled people on campus. Throughout, the authors pay attention to the ways in which disability acts as a significant factor of marginalization for members of institutions, often in interaction with other marginalizing factors.

Notes

1 While identity-first language better encapsulates our theoretical framework, which emphasizes how campus members experience settings that are disabling, we acknowledge individuals’ right to self-determination around how they identify. In this piece, we use both identity and person-first language.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rebecca-Eli M. Long

Rebecca-Eli Long (they/them/theirs) is a doctoral student in Anthropology and Gerontology at Purdue University whose research explores disability, structural violence, and activism. They are developing ethnographic knitting as a technique to highlight autistic special interests.

Albert Stabler

Albert Stabler (he/him/his) is an assistant professor of art education at Illinois State University, and was a teacher, curator, critic, and artist in Chicago for about 18 years. He writes about race, disability, carceral institutions, and contemporary art.