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Canadian Political Science Association2025 Annual Conference Programme
The Politics of Belonging: Conflict,
Community, Curriculum
Hosted at George Brown College, Toronto, CANADA
June 3 to June 5, 20252025 Annual Conference Programme
The Politics of Belonging: Conflict,
Community, Curriculum
Hosted at George Brown College
June 3 to June 5, 2025
Women, Gender, and Politics
N19 - ROUNDTABLE: Shifting the frame: What happens when we include women with disabilities in research?
Date: Jun 5 | Time: 01:45pm to 03:15pm | Location:
Chair/Président/Présidente : Leah Levac (University of Guelph)
Hoa Bui (Carleton University)Kirsten Van Houten (University of Guelph)
Jacqueline de Matos Ala (WItwatersrand University)
Deborah Stienstra (University of Guelph)
Abstract: Around the world, one in five women, or almost 800 million, experience disabilities. A recent United Nations report (UNDESA 2024) suggests that while the Sustainable Development Goals aspire to ‘leave no one behind’ by 2030, people with disabilities are being left behind. Women with disabilities experience even greater inequity than those without disabilities in food security, multidimensional poverty, employment, health and access to services. Women with disabilities face additional discrimination, and are targeted by violence, in the context of violent conflict. Yet, they have been systematically excluded from peace operations and negotiations both in the academic literature and practice (Murray, 2021). In much of the Political Science and broader Social Sciences literature, women with disabilities are invisible and their knowledge or experiences are not evident (Nguyen et al., 2019, Stienstra 2023). As researchers from the global South and the global North, at different points in our careers, and drawing from different intellectual and academic traditions, the participants in this roundtable will consider how to shift this frame. We ask what changes in our research methodologies, knowledge production strategies, and the theoretical considerations when we include women with disabilities as important contributors to and knowledge holders in our research? How do we ensure that inclusion is respectful and transformative? What barriers and opportunities currently exist? What are good examples of this type of inclusion? What resources or supports are necessary? We will reflect on what Political and Social Sciences can learn from the experiences of women with disabilities and how that can change our understandings of politics and power relations.