Understanding Disability in Central and East Europe

This collection brings together activism-informed disability research conducted both IN and FROM the region by scholars and activists representing local communities and languages.

Disability in Central and Eastern Europe is situated between ethnic and national identities and languages, socialist/communist and harshly capitalist and neoliberal orders, shifting state borders, policies and regimes, and the fact that disability studies is not yet an academically institutionalised field that manoeuvres between different disciplines. This inherent inbetweenness fuels disability studies in CEE with the diversity of the rich and diverse systems of knowledge and experience. A carefully curated selection of chapters is centred around three main themes that animate contemporary disability studies in CEE:

• local disability histories that contribute to global disability history;

• disability activism and (auto-)biographical methods in disability studies;

• the impact of artistic practices and texts, and accessibility of technology.

Bringing together a diverse group of researchers working in Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Hungarian, Latvian, Polish, Polish Sign Language, Serbian and Slovenian, it will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, sociology, social policy, cultural studies and regional studies more broadly.