Short Abstract:

Disability is a complicated social and cultural construct and a rising interest in folkloristics. Yet our research and methodologies stigmatize and disable individuals. Our goal is to challenge, to unwrite, the scholarship and practices that have contributed to ableism in folklore.

Long Abstract:

Disability and disability understanding is a complicated social and cultural construct that manifests itself, among other ways, in folklore. Disabled people, disability, and the viewpoint of disability studies is a rising interest to folklorists (see for example the Journal of American Folklore 2024 137(545), yet we have not unpacked some of the ways in which our research and methodologies stigmatize and disable individuals. In this panel, our goal is to challenge, to unwrite, some of the scholarship and practices that have contributed to ableism in folklore and related disciplines. As members of the disabled community working with those who may or may not be disabled, we hope to dismantle the ableist practices in ethnography and scholarship by proposing different paradigms, ones that incorporates disability rather than excluding it. By participating in conversations about who gets to represent whom (see Shuman), how we conduct our work, and what we have discovered along the way, we hope to unpack, rewrite, and mobilize others to participate in scholarship and activism. We welcome all disability folklore, new and archived narratives, material culture, performances, traditions and more. The commonality is: Unwriting folklore about disability and disabled people's folklore #DisFolklore.

This Panel has so far received 1 paper proposal(s).
Propose paper