Unsettling research versus activism: how might critical disability studies disrupt traditional research boundaries?

Abstract

This article responds to the call for producing activist-oriented scholarship by engaging with theoretical and methodological approaches that explore the inclusion of women and girls with disabilities in Vietnam. We consider possibilities for connecting different forms of knowledge and activism by reflecting on research practices designed to foster social change. Specifically, we ask: how can critical disability studies be more reflexive about knowledge which privileges particular ways of knowing from the Global North? What alternative possibilities can exist to foster more inclusive and transformative knowledge that tackles systemic forms of oppressions in colonial and postcolonial contexts? Reflecting on an ongoing collaborative project in Vietnam, we argue that critical disability studies which engages with different forms of activism through critical reflections on our privileges can tackle exclusion by opening a new platform for debating social justice transnationally.

Keywords:

• unsettling
• research
• activism
• engagement
• women and girls with disabilities
• Vietnam

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its financial support for this project. They greatly appreciate the contribution of the women and girls with disabilities in Vietnam, including the research assistants, who participated in this project. The authors thank Tammy Bernasky for providing editing suggestions towards the completion of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.