"HEY! WE ARE HERE!! LISTEN TO US ROAR!" Reclaiming and Decentering Problematic Spaces

• In Event: Enacting Disability Justice in Higher Education

Abstract

The increasing demands for racial justice has been a catalyst of ‘enough is enough’ as BIPOC and their co-conspirators speak out about racial injustice. Similar movement(s) are taking place within the ivory tower. This paper addresses the dearth of scholarship around intersectional ableism. Through collective autoethnography and found poetry, we structure living documents of mutual alternative experiences of intersectional ableism as individuals with multiply marginalized identities. As we negotiate and disrupt boundaries, we engage with the framework of Disability Justice and “access intimacy” and “forced intimacy” as a means of bridging between our communities within spaces that acknowledge and affirm our holistic multidimensional beings. Together, we offer further consideration for transformative organizational change in higher education.

Authors

• Holly Pearson, Framingham State University

• David Isaac Hernandez-Saca, University of Northern Iowa