{"id":1003,"date":"2026-06-03T13:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zpe.uni-siegen.de\/teilhabekongress2026\/?page_id=1003"},"modified":"2026-06-23T14:07:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T12:07:02","slug":"pre-conference-evening-event","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/zpe.uni-siegen.de\/teilhabekongress2026\/pre-conference-evening-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Pre-Conference Evening Event"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Whose Questions, Whose Answers? Perspectives on the Nexus of Disability Research and Activism<\/strong><br \/>\nProf Dr Tsitsi Chataika (University of Zimbabwe)<br \/>\nDr \u0160\u00e1rka K\u00e1\u0148ov\u00e1 (University of West Bohemia)<br \/>\nProf Dr Jan \u0160i\u0161ka (Charles University, Prague)<\/p>\n<p>9 September 2026 \ua7fe 5:00 PM \ua7fe University of Siegen, Sandstra\u00dfe 16\u201318,57072 Siegen &amp; ONLINE<\/p>\n<p>Disability research and disability activism have long maintained a productive yet uneasy relationship. Activist movements have fundamentally shaped what disability studies asks, how it asks it, and who gets to ask. At the same time, research has provided movements with concepts, arguments, and visibility, while at times reproducing the very hierarchies it set out to challenge.<br \/>\nCentral to this tension is the question of knowledge: who produces it, under what conditions, and in whose interest. While participatory and emancipatory research frameworks seek to reposition people with disabilities from passive subjects of inquiry to active co-researchers and knowledge producers, questions of power, resources, and accountability persist. Similar ambivalences arise when research turns to disability activism and self-advocacy themselves: it may amplify the voices of those already organised and visible, lend academic authority to advocacy efforts, or expose political exclusion \u2013 while at the same time risking to reproduce hierarchies between more and less established forms of self-representation, or even shaping which forms of activism count as legitimate in the first place. And while research and activism may mutually draw on each other, the benefits of this exchange \u2013 visibility, resources, and credibility \u2013 are rarely distributed equally.<br \/>\nViewing these dynamics from an international perspective adds another layer to the discussion. Disability studies, as an academic discipline, developed primarily in Western Europe and North America. Its foundational frameworks carry cultural and political assumptions that do not travel unquestioned but are increasingly challenged by disability scholars around the globe, calling into question their universality and drawing on different constructions of the individual, community, and interdependence to articulate alternative understandings of disability, justice, and solidarity. At the same time, both research and activism have often developed in regional and national contexts, and the question of what genuine transnational solidarity could look like \u2013 across different political realities, resources, and traditions \u2013 remains open.<br \/>\nProf Dr Tsitsi Chataika, Dr \u0160\u00e1rka K\u00e1\u0148ov\u00e1, and Prof Dr Jan \u0160i\u0161ka will present brief perspectives on the nexus between disability research and activism and invite participants to an open and interactive exchange on the various facets of the topic. Following the event, all participants are warmly invited to stay and continue the exchange over snacks and drinks.<\/p>\n<p>To help with planning the event, we kindly ask you to <a href=\"https:\/\/eveeno.com\/260158854\">register<\/a>.<br \/>\nOnline participants will receive the event link by email before the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whose Questions, Whose Answers? Perspectives on the Nexus of Disability Research and Activism Prof Dr Tsitsi Chataika (University of Zimbabwe) Dr \u0160\u00e1rka K\u00e1\u0148ov\u00e1 (University of West Bohemia) Prof Dr Jan [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1003","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zpe.uni-siegen.de\/teilhabekongress2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zpe.uni-siegen.de\/teilhabekongress2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zpe.uni-siegen.de\/teilhabekongress2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zpe.uni-siegen.de\/teilhabekongress2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zpe.uni-siegen.de\/teilhabekongress2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/zpe.uni-siegen.de\/teilhabekongress2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1026,"href":"https:\/\/zpe.uni-siegen.de\/teilhabekongress2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1003\/revisions\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zpe.uni-siegen.de\/teilhabekongress2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}