The production of disability research in human geography: an introspective examination

Abstract

The ‘geographies of disability’ is an important and evolving area of scholarship within human geography. Uniting the disparate areas of inquiry in this sub‐discipline are researchers’ shared interests in understanding processes of disablement and socio‐spatial experiences of disability. What drives human geographers to engage with this scholarship? We address this and other introspective questions through presenting an analysis of the findings of an online survey conducted with 30 such disability researchers. The overriding purpose is to understand how and why these researchers do what they do. Our presentation of the survey findings is divided into four organizational categories: (1) the researcher; (2) the inquiry; (3) the research outputs; and (4) the institutions. A key finding is that conducting disability research in human geography is very much about negotiating around or through constraints while identifying and enacting enablers in order to accomplish goals associated with producing disability research.

Keywords:

• disability
• research
• geography
• researchers
• constraints
• enablers

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all those who took the time to respond to the survey and contribute to this introspective examination.

Notes

1. Our intent is not to provide an exhaustive listing of research areas but rather to illustrate the diversity of topics geographers investigate. We suggest that readers who would like a fuller understanding of the evolution of disability research in human geography or specific areas of study consult Butler and Parr (1999), Crooks et al. (2008), Gleeson (1999), Imrie (1996), Imrie and Edwards (2007), Park, Radford, and Vickers (1998) and/or Worth (2005).

2. This listserv is a discussion forum for disability researchers in geography with an international membership. For more information see http://courses.temple.edu/neighbor/service/.

3. This study was reviewed and approved by the Critical Disability Studies Ethics Review Committee at York University.

4. Participants were not asked to include their names or the names of their institutions on the survey. E‐mail addresses that were provided were sorted into a different file and were never paired with responses.