Digital Collections

Science and Disability Oral History Project

31 items

What makes a person “disabled”? Is it a physical, cognitive, or emotional impairment that is manifested in that person’s body, or is it the presence of barriers and the absence of accommodations in society and the environment in which that person must live and work? Some categories of disability are contested, such as pregnancy, which may be viewed as disabling by some but not by others. Deciding what is and is not a disability is a historically and politically meaningful act. Many of the interviews included in the project are with individuals who might not self-identify as disabled, but each interview includes some discussion that sheds light on what disability, or the perception of disability, can mean and how it can affect a person’s life, education, and career in STEM.