Constanza’s visit to the School of Education and the iHuman Interdisciplinary Center began on 5th June and will last until July 3rd with Dr. Dan Goodley as her host. Constanza is a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies on Thought, Culture and Society from University of Valparaíso in Chile. Since 2019, she researches, lectures and intervenes with undergraduate and postgraduate students in different universities on topics related to feminist and gender theories and social disability studies. Her experience in interdisciplinary teams dedicated to scientific research and training in higher education, together with her management work in a non-governmental organization in the field of disability, led her to her current research project focused on the articulation of a feminist approach towards disability from Latin America.
Her academic stay consists of an array of activities within and outside the iHuman Interdisciplinary Center. It involves interviews with academics of iHuman Center and of the Centre for Care of Sheffield University, the Cultural Disability Studies Center of Liverpool University and the Center of Disability Studies of University of Leeds; among other visits to researchers in Bristol, Durham and London.
Whilst here, Constanza will be delivering an in-person critical disability studies seminar alongside Dr. Goodley and other members of iHuman Center. She will address key elements of her PhD research, which she hopes can contribute to critical understandings of disability that pay attention to intersectionality and coloniality, as well as to a reflection on care as a possible foundation for a politically committed scientific knowledge production. For this she draws on literature on feminist disability studies and its views on interdependence, vulnerability and autonomy, also considering the tensions that emerge in relation to disability studies and feminist scholarship. More information about the event can be found here: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ihuman/events
I am very thankful for this opportunity to share the research I’ve developed with my professors and above all very excited to learn and have the chance to collaborate in activities with people whose work I’ve admired for such a long time. Last but not least, I hope this can help to enhance critical connections and dialogues between European and Latin American contemporary Disability Studies
Constanza López Radrigán
