CfP: Hidden Worlds: Histories of Disability Things and Material Culture
We are inviting submissions for a hybrid (online and
in-person) workshop Hidden Worlds: Histories of Disability Things and
Material Culture, taking place in September 2023. Abstracts are due May 1
2023.
Hidden Worlds:
Histories of Disability Things and Material Culture
For over two decades, historians of disability have
called for greater engagement with material culture (Katherine Ott, David
Serlin, and Stephen Mihm). Responding to this call, they have extensively
examined prosthetics and wheelchairs, focusing on the processes of
rehabilitation and design. Recently, the Crip Technoscience Manifesto (Aimi
Hamraie and Kelly Fritsch) has encouraged historians to consider how disabled
people have played more active roles in hacking, tinkering and re-purposing the
material artifacts that have animated their everyday lives. The focus on
disability things (Katherine Ott) is a strategic attempt to centre how users
lived with these ‘things’ and to broaden what historians usually consider as
technologies. We want to encourage papers to think critically about the
artefacts that have constituted the everyday lives of disabled people, and to
explore conventional disability technologies in new and creative ways.
Topics may address, but need not be limited to, the
following broad themes:
- Tinkering architecture to build accessible worlds
- Assistive and Health Technologies (including resistance and
non-use)
- Re-purposed/modified mundane artefacts (anything from beds to
Tupperware)
- Improvised, bespoke solutions
- Tacit and embodied knowledge
- Negotiations, power and social hierarchies
- Diverse roles of disabled people throughout a technology’s life
cycle.
Practical Details
Titles and abstracts (300 words maximum) as well as
general queries should be addressed to Neil Pemberton and Beck Heslop by May 1 2023. Accommodation and travel costs for invited participants will be
covered by the organisers.
We are committed to making this event as accessible as
possible and welcome any suggestions for how we might achieve this.
The hybrid workshop will be based at the University of
Manchester (UK) on Wed 13th-15th September 2023.