Disability Allyship and Culture

Disability cultures frame the ways we view ability and identity. Communities built around disability culture create discourses that aims to shape research and allyship and promote a more inclusive and accessible society. Study on these topics has created a variety of models that direct ways we can contend with prejudice and privilege. We are collating a collection of articles and resources on disability culture to help others engage on this topic.

• Disability Futures in the Arts
  A series of essays by disabled writers and artists has been launched!  The first cohort of essays, published by Wordgathering, are by Chun-shan (Sandie) Yi, Travis Chi Wing Lau, Sandra Alland, Jerron Herman, and Noa Winter.
• 6 Ways to Dismantle Barriers for Disabled Faculty on Campus (The Mind Hears Blog)
  As higher education strives to be more inclusive and open to all, historical barriers are being dismantled. Yet these efforts often overlook a key group: disabled faculty. 
• Mainstreaming Critical Disability Studies: Towards Undoing the Last Prejudice
  Dissertation by research associate Cali Anicha that looks at centering disability within discourse, awareness of enabled privilege and the harms of disablism, what constitutes disability allyship, and a discussion of core assertions and findings and points to future research priorities. 
• We Are Here: Negotiating Difference and Alliance in Spaces of Cultural Rhetorics
  A call for those building cultural rhetorics to think and communicate explicitly about how to orient to each other’s differences and affinities; a look at how allyship is not a state to be achieved, but a community-based process of making; and a push for cultural rhetorics to think seriously about what it means to negotiate difference in the spaces we create and what our practices of allyship should look like going forward.
• Supporting Neurodivergent Colleagues in the Workplace
  Neurodivergent staff, faculty, and students discuss methods to be more inclusive to neurodiverse issues in a video presentation and panel.
• Anthropology and Ableism (Requires Library Access)
  This article by Erin L. Durbin in American Anthropologist highlights the underanalyzed issue of ableism inherent to academic work, specifically fieldwork and culture within anthropology.
• #SaytheWord: A Disability Culture Commentary on the Erasure of "Disability"
  A paper that discusses the sociocultural implications of the term "disability" and explains the rationale behind the #SaytheWord movement, a social media call to embrace disability identity.
• Anthropology and Ableism
  A 2021 article by Erin Durban about the tradition of writing about embodies knowledge production to highlight the underanalyzed issue of ableism, providing an opening for a disciplinary reckoning with oppressive legacies towards creating collective access in anthropology and academia.
• Ableism in Academia: Where Are the Disabled and Ill Academics?
  A 2018 article by Nicole Brown and Jennifer Leigh that stimulates a debate and raises awareness of those academics experiencing chronic illness, disability or neurodiversity, whose voices are not heard.
• Our Disabilities Have Made Us Better Scientists
  A 2019 article from Scientific American discussing how disability can be perceived as a negative in research and academia, but how it actually provides critical positives.  
• The Neglected Demographic: Faculty Members with Disabilities
  A 2017 article, by Joseph Grigely, from The Chronicle of Higher Education. This article discusses how colleges and universities underrepresents disables faculty members.  
• Wanted: Disabled Faculty Members
  A 2016 essay published in Inside Higher Ed. The collaborative essays discuss the hiring process when you are disabled and contain anecdotes from authors Jay Dolmage and Stephanie Kerschbaum.  
• Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2019 | NSF - National Science Foundation
  The National Science Foundation shares tables presenting detailed data on the demographic characteristics, enrollment, degrees, and employment of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science and engineering.
• Graduate School and Students with Disabilities
  Graduate students with disabilities, working with faculty and disability services, can have successful grad school experiences, complete their degrees, and enter rewarding careers.
• Using a Screen Reader
  Hadi Rangin is an expert user of screen reader software. In this video, he demonstrates the elements of a well designed web page and how they sound to someone who is blind. Issues discussed include ARIA landmarks, headings, and text content.
• Disability-Related Videos
  Video collections that share perspectives of individuals with disabilities and universal design strategies that make the world more inclusive.