How We Got Started
The Mobilizing Critical Disability Studies for Change (Mobilizing CDS) network started with informal chats about how we bring CDS to non-CDS academic spaces. In 2016, a small group of us organized a panel at the Canadian Disability Studies Association (CDSA) conference. As rehabilitation and social work professionals, we each shared about turning towards a CDS perspective in our work. Met with enthusiasm, we realized there was energy to continue and expand this work. We secured a workshop grant and organized the first Mobilizing CDS meeting in 2019. At the workshop were academic faculty members, emerging young scholars, community researchers, and activists from diverse disability communities. We shared perspectives, issues and priorities with each other in a collaborative, accessible three day meeting, leading to the identification of four priority areas: academic-community partnerships, mentoring, research ethics, and teaching CDS in non-CDS spaces.
The four working groups had momentum and we prepared panel sessions on each topic for the CDSA conference in London, Ontario 2020. Then COVID hit, the conference was cancelled and group members had other priorities. A smaller group was able to keep working, shifting focus towards the impact of COVID-19 on disabled people. To regain our momentum, we created this website to be a space to gather and connect and continue the work we had started in mobilizing critical disability studies scholarship.
2019 Workshop Participants
Miguel Aguayo MSW, Disability Activist, Anti-Ableist Educator
Katie Aubrecht Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, St. Francis Xavier University
Hazel Booth PhD, Nurse Lecturer, Dundee University, UK
Madeline Burghardt PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy, College of Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Manitoba
Cameron Crawford Senior Data and Policy Officer, Eviance; Adjunct Professor and Sessional Instructor, TMU; Adjunct Professor, York University
Jay Dolmage Professor and Chair, Department of English, University of Waterloo; Editor, CJDS
Krystine Donato Seasonal Instructor, Faculty of Education, Brock University
Goldie (Michelle) Duncanson PhD Candidate, Rehabilitation Science Institute, University of Toronto
Tracey Edelist PhD, Co-Lead, Foundations Curriculum Social Justice, Anti-Oppression and Advocacy Visioning, Review, and Implementation Project, MD Program, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto;
Sessional Lecturer, Departments of Linguistics and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto
Ann Fudge Schormans Associate Professor, School of Social Work, McMaster University
Mary Jean Hande Assistant Professor, Sociology, Trent University
Susan Hardie PhD, Executive Director, Eviance (Canadian Centre on Disability Studies Inc.); Adjunct Professor, School of Health Policy & Management, Faculty of Health, York University
Chelsea Jones Assistant Professor, Department of Child and Youth Studies, Brock University
Nancy LaMonica Professor, School of English and Liberal Studies, Seneca College
Susan Mahipaul PhD, OT, Critical Disability Studies Scholar, Consultant, Advocate, Health Systems Navigator; Instructor, Disability Studies, King’s University College, University of Western Ontario
Chavon Niles PhD, Co-Lead, SPEC Curriculum, Department of Physical Therapy, University of Toronto
Fran Odette Instructor, George Brown College, Disability Activist and Educator
Wendy Porch M.Ed., Executive Director, Centre for Independent Living in Toronto (CILT)
Hazel Self Community Coordinator, Gage Transition to Independent Living, West Park Healthcare Centre
Fady Shanouda Assistant Professor, Feminist Institute of Social Transformation, Carleton University
Karen Yoshida Professor Emeritus, Department of Physical Therapy, University of Toronto