Antarctic Disability Project: June update

Monthly blog updating on the progress of my SCAR Fellowship project: “Setting an agenda for disability-focused research in Antarctic Humanities and Social Sciences”.

Welcome to another month in the Antarctic Disability project, a Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) funded project aiming to define the priority research questions related to disability inclusion in Antarctic science.

Project Progress

This last month has been all about data analysis! The 90 people who responded to the community survey left behind over 13000 words worth of responses to the open questions in the survey, and my task recently has been to go through it all to draw out the key research questions. Here's some of my key takeaways so far:

1. This isn't a hypothetical research area. Disabled people are already working in the Antarctic community (yes, that includes fieldwork!)

2. It's true that there are barriers to disability inclusion, particularly in regard to fieldwork, related to the physical safety of people working in extreme and remote environments

3. However, it's also true that a lot of the problems people have reported come down to subjective socio-cultural factors, like perceptions of what disabled people are capable of, discrimination, and research cultures

4. This work is worth doing. There is a real desire for research that can lead to change and inform guidance for institutions and individuals.

Lots more results to come: watch this space!

A thank you

As is my usual practice, I like to include a piece of something good in these blogs, and this month's is very much related to the project. I was recently invited to contribute to the British Antarctic Survey's 'Privilege Conversations' series. I couldn't have asked for a more welcoming and engaged audience. Thank you to everyone who attended and offered your thoughts and ideas, and a welcoming space to share preliminary results for the first time. It's really heartening to see these conversations happening right within National Antarctic Programmes.

Want me to come and talk about disability and Antarctica? Get in touch: antarcticdisabilityproject@gmail.com