Evening event preceding the 4th Participation Research Congress

Whose Questions, Whose Answers? – Perspectives on the Nexus of Disability Research and Activism

Disability research and disability activism have long maintained a productive yet uneasy relationship. Activist movements have fundamentally shaped what disability studies asks, how it asks it, and who gets to ask. At the same time, research has provided movements with concepts, arguments, and visibility, while at times reproducing the very hierarchies it set out to challenge.

Central to this tension is the question of knowledge: who produces it, under what conditions, and in whose interest. While participatory and emancipatory research frameworks seek to reposition people with disabilities from passive subjects of inquiry to active co-researchers and knowledge producers, questions of power, resources, and accountability persist. Similar ambivalences arise when research turns to disability activism and self-advocacy themselves: it may amplify the voices of those already organised and visible, lend academic authority to advocacy efforts, or expose political exclusion – while at the same time risking to reproduce hierarchies between more and less established forms of self-representation, or even shaping which forms of activism count as legitimate in the first place. And while research and activism may mutually draw on each other, the benefits of this exchange – visibility, resources, and credibility – are rarely distributed equally.

Viewing these dynamics from an international perspective adds another layer to the discussion. Disability studies, as an academic discipline, developed primarily in Western Europe and North America. Its foundational frameworks carry cultural and political assumptions that do not travel unquestioned but are increasingly challenged by disability scholars around the globe, calling into question their universality and drawing on different constructions of the individual, community, and interdependence to articulate alternative understandings of disability, justice, and solidarity. At the same time, both research and activism have often developed in regional and national contexts, and the question of what genuine transnational solidarity could look like – across different political realities, resources, and traditions – remains open.

Prof. Dr Tsitsi Chataika, Dr Šárka Káňová, and Prof. Dr Jan Šiška will present brief perspectives on the nexus between disability research and activism and invite participants to an open and interactive exchange on the various facets of the topic. Following the event, all participants are warmly invited to stay and continue the exchange over snacks and drinks.