Disability and Citizenship: Global and Local Perspectives

This conference will explore the ways in which contemporary notions of disability are linked to concepts of citizenship and belonging. Leaders in advocacy, education, medicine, and politics will consider how ideas of community at the local, national, and international levels affect the understanding of and policies related to disability—and how this has manifested itself, in particular, in higher education.

The Radcliffe Institute is in the second year of a two-year exploration of the broad theme of local, national, and international citizenship through a series of public and private programs, fellowships, special collections, and exhibitions. In 2017–2018, we featured conferences on citizenship and gender and on citizenship and health care; panel discussions about indigenous rights, religious minorities, and refugees; lectures on the use of big data and on poetry in America; and private events on transgender remembrance, noise pollution, urban space, women’s votes, human rights, and accessible technology in the developing world, among many other topics.