Three Disabled Queers Enter an R1: One Strange Story Leaves

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 11:45 am - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Being Otherwise: Narratives of Resistance and Renewal

Abstract

Using collaborative autoethnographic narrative inquiry, we examined our experiences of institutional bullying as three queer disabled academics across different hierarchical positions at the same research intensive university. We deliberately blurred individual narratives through strange accounting to create collective memories that challenge academia's sanitized discourse of civility and centering survival knowledge. We "unforgot" histories of institutional violence against our marginalized bodies while imagining futures grounded in collective resistance. Further, we revealed how academic bullying operates as intersectional disciplinary power, targeting queer disabled ways of being and knowing. Through this work, we generated knowledge about institutional violence while modeling alternative research practices that prioritize protection and collective voice over individual exposure, contributing to more just and inclusive narrative inquiry practices.

Authors

• Leia K. Cain, University of Tennessee

• Anna Teitt, University of Tennessee

• Leah Oakes, University of Tennessee