Emancipatory research and disabled people: some observations and questions

Many factors contribute to the oppression and discrimination of disabled people and to their exclusion from key decisions affecting the quality of their lives. In the last two decades in particular there has been an increasing interest in many societies over the role of research in relation to the empowerment and thus inclusion of disabled people. Dominant research traditions and values have been seriously criticized especially by disabled scholars in an attempt to produce a shift in thinking over the nature and purpose of research. In relation to the struggle for inclusivity the extent to which research can be an empowering and enabling force in the lives of disabled people is a topic of fundamental importance. It is the issue that I will briefly explore in this article.