Disability studies as ethnographic research and text: research strategies and roles for promoting social change?

This paper problematises the notion of research production within disabilit y studies by comparing literature oil emancipatory research with concepts o f reflexivity, authority and empowerment employed within ethnographic resea rch. It critically examines a number of proposals within disability studies on how researchers can stimulate or contribute to processes which improve their respondents life conditions. A variety of strategies for change are d iscussed within the context of how ethnographers do fieldwork, and write up and disseminate their findings. This discussion also questions the role of the researcher and respondent as 'expert', suggesting that ethnographers s hould not privilege their own perspectives over that of respondents. It is concluded that the variety of research strategies and roles outlined in thi s paper need not be mutually exclusive and therefore, that there are a numb er of different yet complementary ways, in which researchers call contribut e to the conditions within which self-emancipation flourishes.