Please see the full Preliminary Program here: TinyURL.com/Disability-Appalachia-Programs

Schedule at a Glance

7:30-8:30: Check in and tabling/poster/gallery set up, breakfast

8:30-8:45 Welcome (Atticus White, LGBTQ* Resources)

8:45-9:30 Roundtable on Terminology 

9:30-9:45 Break

9:45-10:30: Session 1: Histories and Stories of Disability and Place

10:30-10:45 Break

10:45-11:30: Session 2: Disability, Race, and Indigeneity in Appalachia

11:30-12:30: Lunch & Networking

12:30-1:30: Resource Fair (Tabling) and Poster & Gallery sessions

1:30-2:15: Keynote, Dr. Sumi Colligan: From Crip Solitude to Crip Solidarity: A Scholar-Activist's Engagement with Disability Studies

2:15-2:30 Break

2:30-3:15: Session 3: Debility, Healthcare, and Health (In)equities in Appalachia

3:15-3:30 Break

3:30-4:15: Session 4: Collective Action and Envisioning a Path Forward

4:15-4:45: Call to Action/ Moving Forward

4:45-5:00: Closing Remarks (Kendra Winchester, Read Appalachia)

Keynote Address: “From Crip Solitude to Crip Solidarity: A Scholar-Activist's Engagement with Disability Studies” — Dr. Sumi Colligan

We are excited to be hosting Dr. Sumi Colligan for our keynote presentation. She is a professor emerita of the Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Department at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and among the first to write about conducting ethnographic research as a disabled anthropologist, challenging Western biases in the field. She has been embedded in multiple disability worlds, both as a child and in her many forms of participation in the Society for Disability Studies. Among her fieldwork experiences, she collaborated with a disabled sociologist to interview Israeli disability rights activists and co-edit a special issue on disability in Israel and Palestine for the Disability Studies Quarterly. Dr. Colligan has also dedicated herself to carving out spaces for disabled anthropologists to share their perspectives on the discipline at the American Anthropological Association meetings and is currently co-editing a volume for Routledge that incorporates the work of junior and senior anthropologists reflecting on how their disabilities have shaped their encounters, methodologies, and insights in the field.