Parasites, pawns and partners: disability research and the role of non-disabled researchers

TLDR: Six principles of emancipatory research are identified and an attempt made to balance the twin requirements of political action and academic rigour are made.

Abstract: Important methodological questions are raised by the act of researching disablement. Disability research has attracted much methodological criticism from disabled people who argue that it has taken place within an oppressive theoretical paradigm and within an oppressive set of social relations. These issues are of heightened significance for non-disabled researchers and bear many similarities to those faced by researchers investigating barriers to the social inclusion of women, Black and ‘Third World’ peoples. Such challenges have led to the development of an ‘emancipatory’ research paradigm. Six principles of emancipatory research are identified and the authors’ own research projects are critically examined within this framework. A number of contradictions are identified and an attempt made to balance the twin requirements of political action and academic rigour.

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Stone, E. and Priestley, M. (1996) Parasites, pawns and partners: disability research and
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Stone, E. and Priestley, M. (1996) Parasites, pawns and partners: disability
research and the role of non-disabled researchers. British Journal of Sociology,
47 (4). pp. 699-716.
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Stone, E. and Priestley, M. (1996) Parasites, pawns and partners: disability
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Stone, E. and Priestley, M. (1996) Parasites, pawns and partners: disability
research and the role of non-disabled researchers. British Journal of Sociology,
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Parasites, pawns and partners: disability research and
the role of non-disabled researchers
EMMA STONE AND MARK PRIESTLEY
Disability Research Unit, University of Leeds
(This article first appeared in the British Journal
of Sociology, 1996, Vol. 47, No. 4: 699-716).
Abstract Important methodological questions are raised by
the act of researching disablement. Disability research has
attracted much methodological criticism from disabled people
who argue that it has taken place within an oppressive
theoretical paradigm and within an oppressive set of social
relations. These issues are of heightened significance for
non-disabled researchers and bear many similarities to those
faced by researchers investigating barriers to the social
inclusion of women, Black and ‘Third World’ peoples. Such
challenges have led to the development of an ‘emancipatory’
research paradigm. Six principles of emancipatory research
are identified and the authors’ own research projects are
critically examined within this framework. A number of
contradictions are identified and an attempt made to balance
the twin requirements of political action and academic rigour.
Introduction
Research and the Social Model of Disablement
The dominant sociological and cultural representation of disabled
people (in western societies and in some areas of the developing
world) is underpinned by a conceptualization of disablement in
terms of tragedy, the impaired body and Otherness. In this way it is
consistent with oppressive representations of women and black
people which also locate the ‘problem’ within the body (rather than
within a patriarchal or racist society). By contrast, social models of
disablement locate disability firmly within the structures of society
including its values, mode of production, political economy,
physical environment and ‘welfare’ system (Oliver 1990).
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In line with this analysis, disabled people and disability theorists
have sought to identify a new methodology commensurate with
fighting the social oppression of disabled people. That concern has
intensified over recent years with the articulation of an
‘emancipatory paradigm’ for conducting disability research: witness
the 1992 special edition of Disability, Handicap and Society, and
the more recent, if less radical, North American contribution,
Disability Is Not Measles (Rioux and Bach 1994). The importance
of these contributions amounts to far more than the ‘methodology
mania’ which grips every self-respecting sociology-based discipline
at some point in its development. It is the logical and vital next step
in securing acceptance of the social model within mainstream
sociology.
Aims
Our aims in this paper are threefold. First, we set out the key
challenges which have been levelled at researchers contemplating
disability research under the banner of ‘emancipatory research’,
and in so doing we hope to locate disability research within wider
methodological debates. This is inspired by the realization that
disability research methodologies still have much to gain from
feminist, anti-racist and development research.
Secondly, having highlighted the key principles of the
emancipatory paradigm, we question our own ability to meet those
challenges in conducting empirical research which is centred
around field study. Our research projects are still in their formative
stages and accordingly our personal perspective is one of
anticipation (of difficulties and contradictions) rather than
justification of research already undertaken.
Finally, as researchers interested in disablement, we believe that
we need to make ourselves more accountable to disabled people
by opening up our research rationale to the widest possible
scrutiny, along the lines suggested by Stanley and Wise (1983:
206)
A major consequence of making available the reasoning
procedures which underlie the knowledge produced out of the
research is ‘vulnerability’. We believe that this is the only
satisfactory - because effective - way of tackling fundamental
2

features of the power relationship existing between researchers
and researched.
This is particularly important for non-disabled researchers because
the inherent power relationship between researcher and
researched is accentuated by the unequal power relationship
which exists between disabled people and non-disabled people in
the wider world. Thus the present article is in part an attempt to
introduce more ‘vulnerability’ into our own research projects.
Condemning parasites and challenging partners
As disabled people have increasingly analysed their segregation,
inequality and poverty in terms of discrimination and oppression,
research has been seen as part of the problem rather than as part
of the solution:
... Disabled people have come to see research as a violation
of their experience, as Irrelevant to their needs and as failing
to improve their material circumstances and quality of life.
(Oliver 1992: 105)
The major critiques of disability research are grounded in
experiences of oppression. Decades of ‘scientific’ research have
perpetuated the marginalization of disabled people, justifying
segregationist policies, eugenics, and the systematic denial of
human rights (Rioux and Bach 1994). Researchers within the
interpretative paradigm have also been criticized for compounding
oppression (see Hunt’s (1981) vitriolic ‘Settling Accounts with the
Parasite People’, Finkelstein’s (1980) condemnation of Goffman’s
Stigma, or Abberley’s exposé of the oppressive rationale behind
the 1988 national disability survey by the Office of Population
Censuses and Surveys). Add to this list personal accounts of
alienation, imposed passivity and betrayal at the hands of
researchers and the call for a new research paradigm seems long
overdue.
What, then, do proponents of the emancipatory research paradigm
advocate to transform ‘the parasite people’ into partners? The
discussion below identifies six key principles of emancipatory
research concerning theory, the goals of research and research
practice.
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Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions in this paper?

Six principles of emancipatory research are identified and the authors ’ own research projects are critically examined within this framework. 

Q2. What are the future works in this paper?

The authors maintain that the priorities for disability researchers must be the adoption of a social model of disablement, an overt political commitment to the development of the disabled people ’ s movement, the use of non-exploitative research methods and a commitment to research which is widely disseminated for use against oppression. 

Q3. What is the first principle of disability research?

Zarb (1992) looks to a time when disabled participants’ own research priorities are no longer subordinated by a dominant, positivist research paradigm which values and claims objectivity. 

Q4. What is the importance of reversing research hierarchies?

In understanding the importance attributed to reversing research hierarchies, it is vital to recognize that disabled people as a group are in an oppressed position and that research is conducted within a wider context of oppressive social relations built upon the privilege and power of non-disabled people. 

Q5. What is the main argument for the emancipatory paradigm?

as researchers who have decided to explore disablement, the authors believe that it is vital to face up to these challenges and that, where the authors anticipate contradictions and difficulties, the authors might use them as a point of entry into a more critical analysis of the emancipatory paradigm. 

Q6. What are the first two principles of emancipatory research?

The first two principles of emancipatory research outlined above establish an epistemological standpoint for the disability researcher and eschew notions of detached objectivity as falsely premised, if not inherently oppressive. 

Q7. What is the main theme of Morris's book?

Morris (1991) notes the importance of an oral tradition in the early stages of collective struggle by other oppressed groups (notably the feminist movement) and thus employs a qualitative approach to her study using interviews with eight disabled women. 

Q8. What are the main objectives of this paper?

the authors set out the key challenges which have been levelled at researchers contemplating disability research under the banner of ‘emancipatory research’, and in so doing the authors hope to locate disability research within wider methodological debates. 

Q9. What is the definition of antioppressive practices?

(1992: 102)If research is to be relevant, and if the researcher is to demonstrate commitment in actions as well as words, then antioppressive practices must begin with the research production process itself. 

Q10. What is the significant attack on the positivist paradigm?

Probably the most significant attack has been directed against the dominance of positivism as a paradigm for social research (Smith 1988; Stanley 1990), particularly where a new social movement is itself the subject of research. 

Q11. What is the argument that emancipatory research is a good idea?

These arguments indicate that it would be misguided to equate emancipatory disability research with any one approach to data collection since both qualitative and quantitative methods can be used in an oppressive or an emancipatory context.