Call for Papers: Anarchism and Disability

Yes, i know it's been a (very) long time since i've posted anything on this blog. I have had a lot of other things in my life, and writing that isn't for a specific target has had to take a back seat. I might revive this blog to some extent soon, but i think i'd now need to make some fairly major changes to it to be happy with it as a representation of "me"; there are issues of trying to create a "real-name" public profile that i need to figure out how to factor in before starting blogging regularly again.

Anyway, i thought i'd share this here, as (if anyone still has this blog in their RSS readers) it's somewhere to put it out, and the easiest place i can think of to put it online for easy linking...

Call for Papers: Anarchism and Disability

2nd Anarchist Studies Network Conference: “Making Connections”
Loughborough University, U.K.
3-5 September 2012

Dear Colleagues,

This call for papers is for a Disability and Anarchism strand within the 2nd ASN conference. More details on the full conference can be found at http://anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/

We believe that disability as an axis of oppression in capitalist society has been paid relatively little attention by anarchists and other radical theorists (outside of the relatively small and insular field of Disability Studies, which in the UK has largely been dominated by Marxists and, more recently, post-structuralists), and that it is of potentially vital importance for the anarchist movement at this point in history, both because disabled people are at the sharp end of the current attacks on freedom and equality by the ruling class in the UK, EU and elsewhere, and because analyses of the politics of disability, and of wider society from a disabled standpoint, have urgently needed fresh insights to offer to revolutionary activists and theorists.

Issues that we would like to see covered by this session include (but are not exclusive to):

- analyses of the centrality of wage-work and "productivity" in Western society from anarchist and Disability Studies perspectives
- inclusion and exclusion in education and how this intersects with anarchist and related movements for radical educational alternatives
- the Disabled People's Movement as a liberation movement and its relevance to contemporary anarchism
- possible anarchist responses to the current demonisation of disabled people and dismantling of state welfare support for disabled people by governments in the UK and elsewhere
- the intersections of drug prohibition, the prison industrial system, and psychiatric and other medical-institutional systems, and radical critiques of statist drug liberalisation
- examining the unexamined disablism in anarchist and other "radical" spaces and activist practices, and how these could benefit from greater inclusion of disabled people and consideration of their
particular experiences of oppression.

We initially envisage the format of this session as two panels of relatively short paper presentations (depending on space and time available and number of paper proposals), followed by an open, non-hierarchically facilitated discussion. However, we would be open to other suggestions of possible structures, particularly in regard to increasing the accessibility of the session to a greater variety of participants.

Abstracts of 250 words detailing your proposed presentation or discussion should be submitted by the 31st of March 2012. For submissions and more information please contact:


Steve Graby: sgraby@googlemail.com

Anat Greenstein: anatgr78@gmail.com

Jess Bradley: education@ssdp.org.uk