THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL
DISABILITY RESEARCH
Michele Moore
Editor, Disability & Society
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/0968759
9.asp
October, 2010
Disability & Society
Published By: Routledge
Volume Number: 25
Frequency: 7 issues per year
2009 Impact Factor: 0.762 Ranking: 28/68 (Social Sciences,
Interdisciplinary) & 32/52 (Rehabilitation)
Trouble with academic
perspectives
 preoccupation with esoteric knowledge
concerning disability issues ..
 some distance removed from the actuality
of disabled people’s lives
raising disabled people’s own voices
Where distance between academic scholars,
disabled people and their representative
agencies remains great the global politics of
disablement remain deeply contentious and
worrying
we simply MUST work tirelessly to bridge the
gap between academic perspectives and
disabled people’s lives.
pluralist and academically rigorous but which responds to
the priorities of disabled people and their representative
organisations and agencies around the world.
seek the widest possible inclusion of the global disability
research constituency and the widest possible
participation of disability communities in research
disability research should be free, mutable, fluid – led and
inspired by those whose experience of disability remains
as yet unheard
‘shared political grace’
Darder & Yiamouyiannis 2009
disability research in which academics take
seriously their obligation to work towards
processes of political transformation inspired by
disabled people themselves
future long-term issues for global disability
research
Researchers from other worlds ?
major challenges
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
poverty …
environmental degradation ..
human and civil rights abuses ..
ethnic and regional conflicts ..
mass displacements of peoples ..
hunger ..
disease ….
Should we seek to divorce ‘political’ from
‘intellectual’ disability research ?
setting future global disability research
agendas .. never can be a value free,
innocent or an exclusively academic
exercise .. it is ALWAYS an activity that
has a great deal at stake .
but when the work or the conversation is
most difficult, then the importance of
keeping our conversations open is most
critical
Journal perspectives
a Board that is wide and pluralistic in terms
of relevant disciplinary and thematic
backgrounds
facilitate participation of people from around
the world more globally
submissions from the Global South and
indeed all regions of the world are steady
and increasing
As has always been the policy of the journal
the Executive Editorial Board welcome
and take seriously comments about
Disability & Society
The future of global disability lies not in
small part in the gift of our contributors and
reviewers
Taylor & Francis Group is committed to

the widest distribution of its journals to non-profit
institutions in developing countries.

initiatives that aim to increase dissemination
opportunities for research produced in emerging nations
and to bring this scholarly material to the global
academic community.

In cooperation with the World Health
Organisation, Taylor & Francis Group is a longstanding
participant in HINARI, which provides free or low cost
online access to journals across Africa, Latin America,
Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.