Disability as identity in humanitarian responses

The second of the Oxford Human Rights Festival lunchtime seminars showcasing work done here at Brookes around the theme of IDENTITY.

Dr Supriya Akerkar is a senior lecturer in Disaster Risk Reduction with CENDEP, Oxford Brookes University. Her current research engages with social inclusion in development and humanitarian practices.

Dr Akerkar will share her main findings from her current research on age and disability capacity project (ADCAP), highlighting how significations of persons with disabilities act as significant barriers to their inclusion in humanitarian responses. Responding organisations often make discursive assumptions about people with disabilities and their operational environments, normalizing them rather than critically questioning them. The ADCAP programme has partnered with international organisations who have questioned these discourses in their organisational work. Learnings from this ADCAP experience will be captured in her talk.