Intersectionality has gained popularity since the end of the 20th century as a way to both describe and explain inequities in society, including disability. We understand intersectionality to be ‘an analytical and political orientation that brings together a number of insights and practices developed largely in the context of black feminist and women of color political traditions’ (May, 2015, p 3). Central principles include understanding the experience of lived realities as a set of connections across multiple categories of differences; linking individual experience to wider social, political, cultural and economic processes; and refusing a preconfigured experience along any axis of power (after Moraga and Anzaldúa, 1983; Cho et al, 2013; Hankivsky, 2014). Disability justice and radical accessibility are two streams of the disability movement that use principles of intersectionality. Disability justice involves picking at, undoing and dismantling ableism as a system of oppression in concert with other forms of oppression such as racism and sexism. Radical accessibility, an intersectionalist political strategy, challenges all forms of oppression. It seeks to go beyond the inclusion of disabled people and to create communities where difference is not an organising principle of social order. Thus, access is as much about wheelchair ramps as it is about shedding light on the privilege arising from one’s social positioning in society (see Withers, 2012). Yet the mobilisation of intersectionality as a way to inform disability theory, practice or policy does not always succeed in holding the complexity that intersectionality is so good at identifying.
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Engagement with non-academic groups and actors – such as policy-makers, industry, charities and activist groups, communities, and the public – in the co-production of knowledge and real-world impact is increasingly important in academic research. Drawing on empirical research, interdisciplinary methodologies, and broad international perspectives, this collection offers a critical examination of the liminal space of interactions between policy and research as spaces of difference and engagement, showing them to be far from apolitical.The authors consider what, and who, are present in these encounter spaces and examine how pre-existing perceptions about differences in social identity, positionality and knowledge can affect engagement, equity and research outcomes.Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book examines the increasing importance of engagement with non-academic groups and actors in the co-production of knowledge and real-world influence in academic research.