On Disability: Ableism, Development and Selective Solidarity
Professor Maha Shuayb delivered a Margaret Anstee Centre Public Lecture, On Disability: Ableism, Development and Selective Solidarity on 10 February. Maha grew up in the south of Lebanon, inspired by books and deeply interested in academic pursuits from a young age. Through literature, she was gradually inducted into ableism, absorbing the embedded assumptions and constructions about disability present in popular Arabic literature. At age 13, an accident meant she became a wheelchair user, which required her to deconstruct the ableist worldview she had acquired. Over time, she realised that her life was now framed by the external lens of disability.
In the lecture Maha spoke about her own personal journey and political awakening, her struggle to tackle ableism, which she encountered in every sphere of life, including academia, and the need to build solidarity as a way forward. Maha highlighted the lack of interest in academia in disability studies, as well as the under-representation of disabled people amongst academic staff and students. She spoke about the development of disability models, which continued to be construed within an ableist sense - be it the medical model, the social model and the rights-based approach, all of which underestimate the political depth of ableism and disability and have left people with disabilities on the periphery, excluded in many spaces and spheres of life.
Maha also spoke about how western notions and theories of disability and ableism were adopted in many global south countries, focusing on the case study of Lebanon in the 1980s. In Lebanon, the disability movement which unknowingly was an intersection and political approach, became gradually depoliticised and became more narrowly defined. She highlighted the need to deconstruct ableism across all sciences, from urban design to academic research, and the importance of building solidarity so that disability as a political struggle that intersects with other injustices is brought into the mainstream.
The event was chaired by MAC Research Fellow Dr Diala Lteif, who led an engaged and insightful discussion following the lecture.
Professor Maha Shuayb is British Academy Chair at the Faculty of Education and Director of Lebanese Studies at the University of Cambridge. She is a sociologist of education and development, interested in investigating education inequalities and the politics of education reform.
You can watch a recording of the lecture here.