viva prep 3 - Location in field

Disabled people used to be objects of research, with research done ON them for the benefit of others.
The disabled rights movement with its cry of Nothing About Us Without Us spurred researchers to include people with physical and sensory disabilities. But people with intellectual disabilities were not considered.
The inclusive research movement has sought to find ways to involve people with intellectual disabilities in research. We have moved from doing research ON disabled people to doing research FOR them, then WITH them and we are witnessing currently research being led BY people with intellectual disabilities.
Inclusive research has been successful in including people with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities, but people with profound intellectual disabilities have been left behind, and as definitions of inclusive research are drawn up for the purposes of deciding which research is eligible to be funded there is a risk of them being excluded once more.
People have said it is not possible to do research with people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. Research is an inherently intellectual pursuit and people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities are a demographic denoted by their lack of intellectual capacity.
Moves have been made to find creative ways of including people with profound disabilities in research and I join with those looking to hear from these lost voices in my work.
My original contribution to knowledge is a methodology for doing research with people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. This relied on a willingness to reimagine the research process, rather than a requirement that the people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities change in some way (e.g. by going through a training programme) in order to gain access to the structures of research.
This contribution is presented as an agitant to the narrative that says it is not possible to include people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities in research. The work stands in harmony with those who say we should keep the field of inclusive research fluid (not strictly defined) so that we are open to new creative ways in the future.