Invisible & Under-Represented? Disability History, Objects & Heritage
This student led conference seeks to highlight the work of researchers investigating object based histories of disability and/or the place of disability and disabled people in museums, archives and heritage institutions.
Time: 22-23 March 2022
Location: Online (via Zoom)
Deadline for submissions: 21 January 2022
The experiences and histories of disabled people, like other marginalised groups, are often absent or hidden in the museum or archive. Almost twenty years ago, both Annie Delin (2002) and Catherine Kudlick (2002) separately suggested that the place of disability in our shared past has been 'buried in the footnotes' or the 'unglamorous backwaters of history'. How much has changed? More to the point, how much still needs to change and how might this shape how we look at the material preserved in museums and archives? Disabled people often develop unique relationships with the material world (Ott, 2018), and so perhaps objects offer opportunities to embed disabled people and their histories into the public consciousness.
The conference led by students seeks to highlight the work of researchers investigating object based histories of disability and/or the place of disability and disabled people in museums, archives and heritage institutions. The conference hopes to create spaces to foster further discussion around these ideas and methodologies, whilst also reaching out to those unfamiliar with the study of disability or disability history. Ideally, talks will be orientated both towards those within the academic and heritage sectors, promoting further work between the two and sparking new ideas about how disability and it's history can be made more visible in the narratives they construct. The organisers are particularly keen to highlight work being undertaken by PGRs.
Abstracts and expressions of interest from all who would like to take part in this conference as a speaker are welcomed.
Read more about the possible topics and requirements for the abstract.
Organisation
Louise Bell (she/her), Sam Brady (he/him), Isabelle Lawrence (she/her)
This conference is organised by three UK-based PhD students whose research projects are being funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council's (AHRC) Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) programme.
