UNM professors earn NSF award to convene conference on how disability shapes humanity

University of New Mexico Associate Professor of Anthropology Siobhán Cully (previously Mattison) and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Ian Wallace, along with University of California, Santa Cruz Associate Professor of Anthropology Megan Moodie have been awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation conference award to bring together scholars to advance knowledge of disability in Anthropology.

The $94,224 award supports aims to increase the exchange of information between scientific, humanistic, and other ways of knowing.

"Anthropology is one of the most inherently pluralistic disciplines out there," says Cully. "Yet, we anthropologists often conduct our work in philosophical silos that prevent progress from being made. For disability studies, this is a real impediment, both in terms of creating fundamental knowledge and applications that can impact people's lives."

Cully is a biocultural anthropologist with expertise in both Biology and Cultural Anthropology. She recently became disabled by a chronic condition - myasthenia gravis - that has caused her to think differently about how her discipline has incorporated disability into its models of human variation.

"Frankly, biocultural anthropologists have done a not-so-great job of considering how disability affects the most basic aspects of our existence - how we evolved, what we think is 'normal', who is included versus excluded in our studies, and what this means for the validity of our conclusions," she said.

This is a stark oversight, said Wallace, a biological anthropologist who specializes in understanding variation in human physical activity.

"Disability affects every person, directly or indirectly, at some point in their lives. It is a central aspect of human existence," Wallace pointed out. "How do our models stand up when we include a more diverse set of participants? How do our frameworks shift when the knowledge makers include people who have previously been excluded?"

Moodie, a cultural anthropologist, has long been involved in disability activism and scholarship. She says that the gains made in her area of Anthropology are not well known to other parts of the field.

"This conference aims to make progress on that. We want to understand the strengths and limitations of current frameworks and to envision a more inclusive study of disability in and beyond Anthropology."

Twenty-five percent or more of anthropologists identify as disabled, according to a recent Wenner-Gren study. Disabilities include physical and mental conditions, chronic illness, neurodivergence, and other conditions that render people unable to fully access their social and physical environments. They present in ways that can be more or less obvious to other people.

The cost of the planned conference is high because the investigator team want a conference that is "truly accessible to all," Cully said. "We want disabled people to be centered in this conversation, whether or not they have area expertise in disability studies. A majority of workshops and conferences simply don't do that, and we want to establish a new bar for inclusion, which costs money to do right, but benefits everyone. We hope that University of New Mexico can emerge as a leader in this space."

Top image from Anthro Illustrated.

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