Disability History Month 2022
Disability, Health and Wellbeing
Annually from mid-November to mid-December, Disability History Month celebrates the historic civil rights journey of disabled people. Your Students’ Guild is proud to be celebrating our Disabled Student community through a month-long programme of events and activities open to all. In collaboration with the Neurodivergent and Disabled Students Society, find out the many ways you can get involved with Disability History Month 2022.
Find Out More
Following research conducted in schools in 2009, UK Disability History Month began in 2010 and was founded on the principle of promoting disability equality and inclusion, as well as celebrating disabled people’s history.
It is spread across both November and December to line up with other observances, including World AIDS Day (1st December), International Day of People with Disabilities (3rd December), and Human Rights Day (10th December). The reason it is hosted over November and December is so we can enjoy all these days and keep it within term time.
A key message for this month is ‘The Social Model of Disability’. This model seeks to liberate people through recognising how they are disabled by barriers in society, not by their difference. By removing these barriers, disabled people can live independently with more choice and control. Better still, the model was developed by Disabled people themselves providing valuable insight and understanding for their community and other people.
This year’s theme is ‘Disability, Health and Wellbeing’. To find out more, check out the Disability History Month UK website here.
Below, we have collated several Disabled student stories for you to enjoy. To share your story, please email communities@exeterguild.com
Being a Disabled Student at Exeter, by Dante Munday
Our Disability History Intern, Dante Munday has written their story of being a disabled student at Exeter University. Read the stories below, and a history of disability law in the UK:
- Part One
- Part Two
- The History of Disability Law in the UK
Recommended Reading
NDSS have teamed-up with us to provide a list of titles, many of which are available from The Lending Library in DH1:
- Brilliant Imperfections, Eli Clare (2017)
- Carework: Dreaming Disability Justice, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (2018)
- Places I’ve Taken My Body, Molly McCully Brown (2021)
- Sitting Pretty, Rebekah Taussig (2020)
- Injury Impoverished, Nate Holdren (2020)
- The Sick Rose, Richard Barnett (2014)
- Medieval Bodies, Jack Hartnell (2018)
- SPK, Huber Wolfgang (1993)
- The Bodymind Problem and the Possibilities of Pain, Margaret Price (2014, academic paper)
- Disability Visibility (2020)
- Odd Girl Out, Laura James (2018)
- Black Disability Politics, Sami Schalk (2022)
- At the Gates, Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Emily Richardson (2022)
- Theatre and Disability, Petra Kuppers (2017)
Get Involved
More Information
An underlying principle of UK Disability Month is that it starts with educating people through sharing stories and information. To find out more, check out these sources: