Abstract
This paper reports on research about the experiences of disabled staff members in UK universities, drawing on eleven semi-structured interviews with disabled staff in one university, alongside a group auto ethnography conducted by the first four authors, all of whom identified as disabled academics. Disability is generally considered to be predominantly an issue for students, both in practice and in the literature. By contrast, taking a social practice approach, we focused on the barriers faced by disabled employees, both overt and hidden. We found that disability was still viewed as a medical problem, and that disabled members of staff faced considerable extra labour in organising their own supports. We were often made to feel that we were unwanted and that we were ‘misfits’ in the institution. This paper contributes to theory by showing how social practices can become exclusionary, and how interconnections between practices matter. We discuss ways in which ableism, based on the ideal of ‘individual’ excellence, creates barriers for disabled staff. In the global context of Higher Education, the increasing marketization of universities in higher income countries creates a difficult climate for the values of inclusion.
Highlights
This paper aims to analyse the practices which constitute barriers for disabled staff in one UK university, with the wider goal of situating our analysis within the global context of higher education in a changing world
Both parts of this project were led by disabled researchers themselves, with a co-research group formed of nine disabled students, and disabled academics leading the research about staff experiences
UK universities tend to offer their research students the opportunity to carry out small amounts of teaching, and some of our participants had experienced a gradual ‘slide’ into becoming part of the academy, while others, including the authors of this article, had shifted between academia and disability activism
Summary
This paper aims to analyse the practices which constitute barriers for disabled staff in one UK university, with the wider goal of situating our analysis within the global context of higher education in a changing world. As in our previous work (Williams et al 2018), we are interested to explore how disabling barriers are experienced, and can be described and understood as social practices (Shove et al 2012; Reckwitz 2002). Our disability focus moves beyond the individual, and has much in common with a social relational view of disability (Thomas 2004), exploring the normative ways in which society shapes disabled people as ‘other’
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