Creative encounters: disability studies meets development studies

Abstract

Despite some promising beginnings, disability studies and development studies have paid little attention to each other, and have much to gain from doing so. We focus on the need for more inter-connected analyses of post-conflict and post-disaster contexts, and the methodological requirements of inclusive research in ‘low resource settings’. Reflecting on cross-cutting themes from this collection, we highlight: the challenge of translating formal commitments into concrete advances for inclusion, in both national and donor policies and practices; the tension between disability-inclusive practices and neoliberal development policies; the dilemmas of ‘inside’ vs. ‘outside’ strategies for disability rights-promotion; the tensions between ‘mainstreaming’ and intersectionality; and the methodological and theoretical importance of reflexivity.