Graphic with a white background with text that reads: The State of Critical Race Disability Studies: A White Paper Report from the Disabled Scholars of Color Collective
Sami Schalk, Washieka Torres, Subini Annamma, Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, Anna Hinton, Jina B. Kim, Mimi Khúc, Travis Chi Wing Lau, Akemi Nishida, and Jaipreet Virdi
Introduction: Who We Are and How We Came Together
The Disabled Scholars of Color Collective (DSCC) is a group of disabled scholars of color working in the field of disability studies and beyond. The Collective was created in the context of a gathering of disabled scholars of color in San Francisco, California over Labor Day weekend 2025. This gathering was originally envisioned and proposed by Alice Wong to Dr. Sami Schalk to assess the state of race in the field of disability studies as both research topic and identity. The gathering aimed to bring together disabled scholars of color working in disability studies in an accessible, pleasure-forward space to (re)build community within critical race disability studies as a sub-field. The work was funded by Disability Visibility Project with New Disabled South as the fiscal sponsor. Dr. Sami Schalk served as the central planner and host with the support of graduate student project assistant, Washieka Torres. This white paper is the product of the gathering, intended to share our perspectives on the state of critical race disability studies and to provide a vision for the future of the field that can inform our future work as a collective and the work of critical race disability studies more broadly.
Dr. Schalk’s central aim in planning the gathering was to create an accessible and pleasurable experience for thinking together so that critical race disability studies and disability justice were not just the topics of conversation but also shaped the process of the gathering as well. This included having a very spacious and flexible agenda. Our gathering began on Friday evening with dinner and participants were given the option to fly in the day before to allow for rest and recovery from travel. On Saturday and Sunday, we met at 10am for two hours, then took a two-hour break with lunch provided in the suite, followed by a two-hour afternoon working session, then another two-hour break before dinner. This schedule encouraged rest, choice, and pleasure. We started the first dinner by sharing our disability studies origin stories. Saturday morning, we discussed our personal experiences in the field followed by an afternoon discussion of a literature review of work in critical race disability studies prepared in advance by Washieka. On Sunday, we began envisioning and crafting this white paper.
While we had specific discussion period times, conversations also occurred at meals, in the suite on breaks, at the pool, in individual rooms, over group text, within a shared Google document and so on. The meals, care and pleasure built into this gathering helped us (some of whom had never met in person) build comfort, trust, familiarity, respect, and connection that improved our more formal discussions and co-working. The community building element of the gathering therefore created a fruitful foundation for the more formal work of our time together. Our community building was also strongly supported by our shared identities as disabled scholars of color and our shared politics in disability justice and Black, Asian, and Third World feminisms, especially regarding collective care, radical mothering/parenting, and creating a just ecosystem of labor. These commitments, which shape our personal and collective goals for our research, teaching, writing, and advocacy/activism in the world, connected and bonded us as much as our identity positions, if not more so.
During our Sunday discussions, we decided to name ourselves the Disabled Scholars of Color Collective (DSoCC). We formalized our mission as follows:
The Disabled Scholars of Color Collective is a group of disabled scholars of color working and dreaming in the field of disability studies and beyond. Our commitments are to one another, our students, and our disabled and racialized communities more than any institution or field. We reject a field that is built on and perpetuates extractive relationships, erasure, capitalism, ableism, racism, and other interlocking systems of oppression. Instead, we dream of a future that is based on the ethics of generosity and care, a commitment to …