“Play my clip!”: arts-mediated agency in disability-centered learning and research

Abstract

The widespread myth that adults with intellectual disabilities lack agency still pervades learning and research spaces, justifying ableist teaching and research methods. Bringing critical, socio-cultural perspectives on disability together with Disability Justice principles, I present a joyful counternarrative, illustrating how a group of adults with intellectual disabilities exercised agency in and through one drama-based learning and research context. Using data generated through participant observation, group interviews, and analysis of short films, I illustrate how characteristics of this drama-based context—creativity, flexibility, multimodality, and supportiveness—afforded disabled participants’ interdependent agency. I explore tensions that arose during research regarding the nature of truthfulness, “good” storytelling, and systems of power. Results suggest an argument for the arts in learning and research with disabled participants, grounded not in their therapeutic benefit but in their capacity to afford agency, with implications for teachers and researchers looking to engage disabled participants in emancipatory work.