Ableism in Academia: Theorising Experiences of Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses in Higher Education

263 Pages·2021·3.991 MB·English

by  Nicole Brown, Jennifer Leigh

Ableism in Academia

Ableism in Academia
Theorising experiences of
disabilities and chronic illnesses in
higher education
Edited by Nicole Brown and Jennifer Leigh
First published in 2020 by
UCL Press
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
Available to download free: www.uclpress.co.uk
Text © Contributors, 2020
Collection © Editors, 2020
Figures © as noted under each one.
Nicole Brown and Jennifer Leigh have asserted their rights under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the editors of this work.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library.
This book is published under a Creative Commons 4.0 International licence (CC BY
4.0). This licence allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt
the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to
the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the
work). Attribution should include the following information:
Brown, N. and Leigh, J. (eds) 2020. Ableism in Academia: Theorising experiences
of disabilities and chronic illnesses in higher education. London: UCL Press. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787354975
Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Any third-party material in this book is published under the book’s Creative Commons
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ISBN: 978-1-78735-499-9 (Hbk.)
ISBN: 978-1-78735-498-2 (Pbk.)
ISBN: 978-1-78735-497-5 (PDF)
ISBN: 978-1-78735-500-2 (epub)
ISBN: 978-1-78735-501-9 (mobi)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787354975
To everyone who is directly or indirectly affected by ableism in academia.
And to those who need to learn about it.
NB
To my wonderful, beautiful and miraculous family. All of you.
I could not have done any of this without you.
JL
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Contents
List of figures and tables viii
List of contributors ix
Preface xiv
Nicole Brown and Jennifer Leigh
Introduction: Theorising ableism in academia 1
Nicole Brown
1. The significance of crashing past gatekeepers of knowledge:
Towards full participation of disabled scholars in ableist
academic structures 11
Claudia Gillberg
2. I am not disabled: Difference, ethics, critique and
refusal of neoliberal academic selves 31
Francesca Peruzzo
3. Disclosure in academia: A sensitive issue 51
Nicole Brown
4. Fibromyalgia and me 74
Divya Jindal-Snape
5. A practical response to ableism in leadership in
UK higher education 76
Nicola Martin
6. Autoimmune actions in the ableist academy 103
Alice Andrews
vi
7. ‘But you don’t look disabled’: Non-visible disabilities,
disclosure and being an ‘insider’ in disability research and
‘other’ in the disability movement and academia 124
Elisabeth Griffiths
8. Invisible disability, unacknowledged diversity 143
Carla Finesilver, Jennifer Leigh and Nicole Brown
9. Imposter 161
Jennifer A. Rode
10. Internalised ableism: Of the political and the personal 164
Jennifer Leigh and Nicole Brown
11. From the personal to the political: Ableism, activism
and academia 182
Kirstein Rummery
12. The violence of technicism: Ableism as humiliation and
degrading treatment 202
Fiona Kumari Campbell
13. A little bit extra 225
El Spaeth
Concluding thoughts: Moving forward 226
Nicole Brown and Jennifer Leigh
Afterword 237
Jennifer Leigh and Nicole Brown
Index 239
CoNtENts vii
List of figures and tables
Figure 3.1: Screenshot of an email sent to Nicole Brown. 54
Figure 5.1: Four charts depicting the percentages of staff
known to have a disability. Source: HESA 2018. 79
Figure 12.1: Technicians of certification.
Source: Campbell 2001. 216
Table 5.1: Academic staff, managers, directors and senior
officials by age, disability, ethnicity and gender,
2016/17. Source: HESA 2016/17. 80
viii
List of contributors
Nicole Brown is a Lecturer in Education and Academic Head of
Learning and Teaching at the UCL Institute of Education and Director
of Social Research & Practice and Education Ltd. Nicole gained her
PhD in Sociology at the University of Kent for her research into the
construction of academic identity under the influence of fibromyalgia.
She has edited Lived Experiences of Ableism in Academia: Strategies for
Inclusion in Higher Education for Policy Press, co-authored Embodied
Inquiry: Research Methods for Bloomsbury and is currently authoring
How to Make the Most of Your Research Journal for Policy Press. Nicole’s
research interests relate to physical and material representations and
metaphors, the generation of knowledge and, more generally, research
methods and approaches to explore identity and body work, as well as
to advance learning and teaching within higher education. She tweets as
@ncjbrown, @FibroIdentity and @AbleismAcademia.
Jennifer Leigh is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Higher
Education, University of Kent. Jennifer joined the Centre for the Study
of Higher Education full-time in 2013. She initially trained as a chemist
and a somatic movement therapist before completing her doctorate in
education, and is a founder member of WISC (an international network
for Women in Supramolecular Chemistry). She is a Senior Fellow of
the Higher Education Academy, teaches on postgraduate programmes
in higher education and works closely with the Graduate School at
Kent. She is the editor of Conversations on Embodiment across Higher
Education (2018) for Routledge, co-authored Embodied Inquiry: Research
Methods for Bloomsbury, and her next book for Bristol University Press
will explore the boundaries of qualitative research with art, education
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