Joint CCD/CHILD seminar: Investigating disabilities in past, present and future societies

Lotta Vikström is Professor of History at Umeå University. She often makes use of demographic data and methods to examine disabled people in history, and has published her results in scholarly journals within the humanities, social sciences and health studies. Josefine Wälivaara (PhD in drama-theatre-film) is a Researcher at Umeå University. Her research in critical disability studies deals primarily with normative notions of (dis)ability, sexuality, gender, and temporality in popular culture and fiction. In their presentation, they will showcase their research project, DISTIME, highlighting its key aspects and findings. Focusing on Swedish society the project contributes knowledge on on what the future will bring regarding how disabilities are both lived and perceived. The project brings together a cross-diciplinary team researching disability across time using a diverse set of sources and methods. Some key results are highlighted at the seminar. First, Josefine Wälivaara presents her research on normativity, disability, and ability in fiction narratives about the future (e.g. in film, television and literature). While contemporary norms concerning disability often become perpetuated in speculative imaginings of the future, they can also challenge normative understanding of disability and ablebodiedness/ ablemindedness. Second, Lotta Vikström presents long-term results on how disabilities have affected the life courses of people with disabilities in the 1800s and 1900s. Their job and partnership chances and their risks for confinement and premature mortality suggest that disability brought disadvantages which persisted over time and concerned both health and social outcomes.

Zoom: https://ju-se.zoom.us/j/61067142285