9th Alter conference - norms interrogated by disabilities
Further to the cancellation of the Alter 2020 conference due to the covid-19 pandemic, we are renewing the call for proposals on “norms interrogated by disabilities” for the Alter 2021 conference. It will take place in Rennes on April 8th and 9th, 2021. The theme of this conference seems more topical than ever and we would like to add the possibility to submit communications more specifically related to the crisis linked to the pandemic that we are going through (see at the end of the call). Proposals accepted in 2020 will be automatically accepted without further evaluation (unless there is a major change). However, you will have to submit them on the Alter2021 site to indicate your intention to participate. New proposals are welcome. This conference is scheduled onsite, providing the evolution of the covid-19 epidemic and travel and grouping restrictions that may force us to consider alternative organisational conditions.
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This call for papers is directed at everyone involved in human and social science research on disability and the loss of autonomy: including work that addresses conceptional and organisational aspects of research, field research, scientific production, qualitative and quantitative methods, etc. Responses from all social fields are welcome (education, employment, culture and recreation, housing, transport, human and technical assistance, political participation, emotional and sexual life, etc.).
This 9th conference aims to discuss the construction of normality and, more broadly, the system of thought that structures our societies in which being “able” is the norm in the sense of both the most widespread and the most desirable situation. The aim of this critical perspective is therefore to highlight how our societies are structured in relation to the notion of the able individual. While the recent call to build inclusive societies would appear to herald a radical turning point, what is the reality? Have we truly finished with representations of disability that tend towards the negative, the defective or even the tragic? To what extend are the “heroized” figures of disability, omnipresent in the public space, perpetrating the representation of disability as a deviation from the norm?