The Disability Archives Lab investigates the ways that archives and the materials they hold document, shape, and impact disabled people—historically and in the present. Keeping critical disability studies at the forefront of researching and building projects around disability, the Lab hosts multi-disciplinary projects and research initiatives that center the politics of disability, how disabled people are affected by archival representation, and how to imagine archival futures that are centered around disabled desires.
We are dedicated to:
- investigating the intersections of disability, disabled people, and archives
- elevating disabled people’s perspectives around using, experiencing, working in, and complicating archives
- building tools by and for disabled people to work with archives and make history accessible
- providing disabled people with opportunities to learn about and gain skills in archival processes and research
- addressing disabled people’s experiences, historic and contemporary
Researching and working on disability in history is hard! Disabled people can be difficult to locate in archives—because of the ways that disabled people are left out of history (or represented in stereotypical ways) and because of how multiply marginalized disabled people, specifically disabled people of color, face many layers of historical erasure. We therefore aim to pay attention to the nuances and specifics of disability history, considering the differences across experiences, time and place. And we consider how ableism is intertwined with racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, fatphobia, and transphobia (as Mia Mingus has written) which impacts archival representation, access and use.
Team Members
Gracen Brilmyer, PhD
Director
Gracen Brilmyer (they/them) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Studies at McGill University. Their research lies at the intersection of feminist disability studies, archival studies, and the history of science, where they investigate the erasure of disabled people in archives primarily within the history of natural history museums. Their research attempts to retell such histories while emphasizing how ableism is central to colonial narratives—historical-archival research that is complemented by empirical research on how living disabled people use and experience archives today. Their work has been published in journals such as Archival Science, Archivaria, and The Journal of Feminist Scholarship. Their research is shaped by their experiences as a white, Disabled, non-binary, queer person. Outside of academia, they are involved in Disability Justice, Design Justice, and social justice projects. For more: gracenbrilmyer.com
Grace Isibor
Research Assistant
Grace Isibor (she/her) is a research assistant with the Disability Archives Lab. She will be studying for a Ph.D. degree at the School of Information Studies. Her research centers around Disability Information, Accessibility, and Archives with a concentration on providing disabled people access to archival disability information. Grace is black, a PCOS warrior and a cisgender female.
Sam Pappas
Research Assistant
Sam Pappas (he/she) is a Research Assistant for the Disability Archives Lab and is currently completing a Master’s of Information Studies at McGill University. He is interested in identifying and deconstructing systemic barriers to information, with a focus on the role of community-run information institutions in combatting these barriers. Sam is a white, autistic, gender non-conforming lesbian. She also works at the McGill Library.
Collaborators
Veronica Denison is the university archivist at Kansas State University, where she has been since 2019. Previously, she was an archivist at the University of Alaska Anchorage for six years. She received her MLIS with a concentration in archives management from Simmons College in 2013. She is a Co-Principal Investigator on The Labor of Belonging for Disabled Archivists.
Nat Decker (they/them) is a Chicago born Los Angeles based artist currently pursuing her undergraduate degree at UCLA in Design|Media Arts and Disability Studies. Via multidisciplinary projects, they investigate disability aesthetics, crip fantasy, and scarred memories. They are white queer and disabled. They are the designer of the Disability Archives Lab logo.
Meesh Fradkin (she/her) is a writer, sound artist, and phd candidate in interdisciplinary music technology at mcgill university. she is also a researcher at the input devices and music interaction laboratory and the centre for interdisciplinary research in music media and technology.
Julia Rose Karpicz works to build knowledge around equitable praxis in postsecondary spaces as a qualitative researcher with DVP-PRAXIS. As a Black scholar and former disability services practitioner with mental illness, her own scholarship explores approaches to access labor in university settings, with a primary interest in how racism and ableism intersect to shape the access and advocacy experiences of disabled Students of Color. For more: juliakarpicz.com
Crystal Lee (she/her) is a PhD candidate at MIT and a research affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University. She works broadly on topics related to the social and political dimensions of computing, data visualization, and disability. She is a disabled Asian-American woman with Taiwanese immigrant parents. Crystal and Gracen are collaborating on research at the intersection of disability and information studies. For more: http://web.mit.edu/crystall/www/
Elizabeth Patitsas (she/her) is an Assistant Professor jointly appointed to the Department of Integrated Studies in Education and the School of Computer Science. Her research examines issues of gatekeeping in computer science, the working conditions of computer science educators, and how crip technoscience can inform CS practice. Elizabeth’s research is shaped by her experiences as a queer, disabled, white settler. Elizabeth and Gracen are collaborating on research about how eugenics is encoded in archives and information technologies. For more: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~patitsas/
Dr. Lydia Tang is currently an Outreach and Engagement Coordinator for LYRASIS. Previously, she held archivist positions at Michigan State University, the Library of Congress, and numerous graduate positions at the University of Illinois, where she received her MLIS and Doctor of Musical Arts degree. She served on the Task Force to Revise Best Practices on Accessible Archives for People with Disabilities and spearheaded founding the Society of American Archivists’ (SAA) Accessibility & Disability Section. She is the 2020 recipient of SAA’s Mark A. Greene Emerging Leader Award and was recognized in three SAA Council resolutions as a co-founder of the Archival Workers Emergency Fund, for spearheading the Accessibility & Disability Section’s “Archivists at Home” document, and for her work revising the SAA “Guidelines for Accessible Archives for People with Disabilities.” She is a neurodiverse Chinese-American woman. Lydia and Gracen are co-editors for the Preserving Disability: Disability and the Archival Profession book.
Past Members & Collaborators
Tara Brar (she/her) was a Research Assistant for the Disability Archives Lab working on The Labor of Belonging: Disabled Archivists & Archival Work. She is a disabled, neurodiverse, senior-year undergraduate at McGill University, pursuing a major in physics and a minor in math. She’s interested in internalized ableism and the systemic and internal barriers faced by disabled people. She is the Founder and President of McGill Students for Science-based Addiction Treatment (MSSAT) Tara is brown, queer, and Canadian.
Bal Krishna Dhakal (he/him) is a Masters’ Candidate in Digital Humanities at McGill University. He is interested in using the Digital Humanities knowledge and skills into Disability Studies. He is keen to use text mining and post-colonial tools in the area. He has worked as Teaching Assistant in the University and been always humble to the faculties and students. He is a first-generation university scholar and identifies himself as cis-gender male.
Interested in getting involved?
Calls for Participation:
All lab-related calls for participation will be posted here. Check back for updates!
Other ways to get involved:
If you’re interested in another possible collaboration with the Lab, please contact us.
Contact
Follow us on Twitter: @DisArchivesLab
Find us on Instagram: @DisabilityArchivesLab
Email us at: DisabilityArchivesLab [at] gmail [dot] com
Email Dr. Gracen Brilmyer directly at: gracen [dot] brilmyer [at] mcgill [dot] ca