Being a rearcher with intellectual disabilities: the hallmarks of inclusive research in action

Open Access

Abstract

The current chapter stems principally from work done at Norah Fry Research Centre at the University of Bristol in the UK, where inclusive research has been one of the hallmarks, and where from the outset, it has been acknowledged that there are many different models and approaches … However, all of these approaches aim … to introduce the voices of people with intellectual disabilities, as active agents in shaping their own lives and their own knowledge. This chapter therefore aims to showcase some of those voices, and to show how we can learn more about what constitutes inclusive research by analysing the fine detail of the interactions that take place during the conduct of research studies. … [The author] will focus here on a couple of points only. First … [he has] come to the conclusion that this link between the personal and political is one of the hallmarks of inclusive research . Much depends therefore on the relationship between the disabled person and those around them, and how that plays itself out in everyday interactions. That point is also directly relevant for inclusive research contexts, and is one that [he hopes] to illustrate through data taken from two projects. The first study was carried out by and with a small group of people with ID in 1998 . The second project … was a fully funded, national research study carried out in partnership with a self-advocacy organisation, looking at the interactions between support workers (personal assistants) and people with ID. … For the purposes of the current chapter, [the author focuses] on the study as an example of inclusive research, showing how it contrasted and added to the interactional knowledge from the earlier study in 1998. (DIPF/Orig.)