Rather than embracing difference, academic ecosystems seek to normalize and homogenize ways of working and of being a researcher. As a consequence, ableism is an endemic experience in academia, though to date no attempt has been made to theorize those experiences. Ableism in Academia provides an interdisciplinary outlook on ableism that is currently missing. Through reporting of research data and exploring personal experiences, the contributors explore the concept of what it means to be and to work outside the so-called norm.
 
The volume brings together a range of perspectives, including feminism, post-structuralism, Derridean and Foucauldian theory, crip theory, and disability theory, and draws on a number of related disciplines. Contributors use various schools of theory to raise awareness and increase understanding of the marginalized. These theories are placed in the context of neoliberal academia, and used to interrogate aspects of identity and how disability is performed, and to argue that ableism is not just a disability issue. This timely collection will be of interest to researchers in disability studies, higher education studies, and sociology, as well as to those working across the social sciences.
 

 Nicole Brown is a lecturer in education and academic head of Learning and Teaching at the UCL Institute of Education.  Jennifer Leigh is a senior lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Kent.

List of Contributors List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements Preface Nicole Brown and Jennifer Leigh Introduction: Theorising ableism in academia Nicole Brown 1. The significance of crashing past gatekeepers of knowledge: Towards full participation of disabled scholars in ableist academic structures Claudia Gillberg 2. I am not disabled: Difference, ethics, critique and refusal of neoliberal academic selves Francesca Peruzzo 3. Disclosure in academia: A sensitive issue Nicole Brown 4. Fibromyalgia and meDivya Jindal-Snape 5. A practical response to ableism in leadership in UK higher education Nicola Martin 6. Autoimmune actions in the ableist academy: A crip response Alice Andrews 7. 'But you don't look disabled': Non-visible disabilities, disclosure and being an 'insider' in disability research and 'other' in the disability movement and academia Elisabeth Griffiths 8. Invisible disability, unacknowledged diversity Carla Finesilver, Jennifer Leigh and Nicole Brown 9. Imposter Jennifer Rode 10. Internalised ableism: Of the political and the personal Jennifer Leigh and Nicole Brown 11. From the personal to the political: Ableism, activism and academia Kirstein Rummery 12. The violence of technicism: Ableism as humiliation and degrading treatment Fiona Kumari Campbell 13. A little bit extra El Spaeth Conclusion Nicole Brown and Jennifer Leigh Afterword Jennifer Leigh and Nicole Brown Index