We have agreed to provide within the journal a list of completed theses in the field of Disability Studies. This will be an important resource for readers to follow through as well as provide the names of colleagues who are new entrants to the discipline.
This is an open invitation for theses completed from 2012 which fit with the Aims and Scope of Disability & Society.
Please provide the following information:
Name of the author
Thesis title
University awarding degree
Degree awarded and year:
A 100 word synopsis of the thesis
Email address
Please forward this information to Helen Oliver, Disability & Society Editorial Office
Email: [email protected]
We will include this call for Doctoral Announcements in forthcoming issues of the journal.
Executive Editors
Name of author: Pei Soo Ang
Thesis title: Naming and visualising people in the discourses of disability
University awarding degree: Macquarie University, Australia (PhD 2016)
This thesis investigates the practices of naming and visualising people in disability news in a Malaysian English newspaper. It employs a critical semiotic theoretical framework and a multi-perspective methodology. A total of 863 news texts together with 1002 accompanying press photographs were analysed. Analyses were also corroborated with 46 interviewees representing various stakeholders. Findings show that the discursive practices of the newspaper construe discriminatory representations of disabled persons. For this, the thesis has developed the Visual Discourse of Disability Analytical Framework and outlined the characteristics of the discourses of disability to understand social construals arising from discursive choices in journalism.
Email: [email protected]
Name of author: Julia Bahner
Thesis title: Too Close for Comfort? A Study of Sexuality, Disability and Personal Assistance [Så nära får ingen gå? En studie om sexualitet, funktionshinder och personlig assistans]
University awarding degree: University of Gothenburg, Sweden (PhD 2016)
This thesis explores sexual facilitation in the context of Swedish personal assistance services to people with mobility impairment. Views of assistance users, assistants, managers and other stakeholders were analysed. Sexual facilitation is understood as a sexual practice at the intersection of individual, organisational and societal levels. Findings highlight a discourse of rights and responsibilities colliding: independent living, worker’s rights and welfare policy. Essentially, do service users have a right to sexual fulfillment, and if so, how is this to be catered to in practice? If not, on what grounds do non-disabled people in positions of power define service users’ sexual lives?
Email: [email protected]
Name of author: Lara Bezzina
Thesis title: DISABLED VOICES IN DEVELOPMENT? The Implications of Listening to Disabled People in Burkina Faso.
University awarding the degree: Durham University, UK (PhD 2017)
Development discourse and practice have generally ignored, even silenced, people with disabilities. In response, this thesis draws on the case of Burkina Faso to bring geographies of development and disability into dialogue with postcolonial theory, which seeks to recuperate the voices of the marginalised and oppressed. It adopts a mixed ethnographic methods approach, including participatory techniques and interviews, in order to understand the lived experiences of disabled people in Burkina Faso. The findings indicate that there is a need to theorise disability from Global South perspectives, as well as to facilitate development through an engagement with the voices and agency of disabled people.
http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12100
Email: [email protected]
Funding
This work was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council through the North East Doctoral Training Centre.
Name of author: Noelle McCormack
Thesis title: ‘Making Memory Sites: Extending opportunities for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities to participate in life story work’
University awarding degree: University of East London, UK (PhD 2017)
Because it is difficult to access the life stories of people with PMLD via orthodox research practices their experiences remain hidden from history. Researching alongside three adults with PMLD using narrative and ethnographic methods identified that opportunities to participate were dependent on particular qualities of people, time and environment. Participation was beneficial because it challenged perceptions, demonstrated their value as people living socially and culturally rich lives, provided a platform for shared remembering and was a catalyst for new narratives. The findings indicate possibilities for including people with PMLD as participants in other research areas including mental health and wellbeing.
Email: [email protected]
Name of author: Engin Yılmaz
Thesis title: The Phenomenon of Disability Perception in Blindness
University awarding degree: Boğaziçi University, Turkey (PhD 2015)
The thesis investigates the perception differences of blind people about their blindness. A qualitative survey was conducted on 36 blind participants, 22 men and 14 women. The findings revealed 5 perception levels from affirmer participants to normalizers. While affirmers and partial affirmers view blindness as a part of their identity, for negative perceivers and normalizers, blindness is certainly a deficiency and is the main cause of their troubles in their lives. Independent living skills and equal interrelation with both blind and sighted people were observed as the most determining factor of perception of disability.
Email: [email protected]