Reason, Matthew ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0536-4236 and Acton, Kelsie ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-2041-9493 (2026) Learning disability, theatre making and epistemic justice: creating and sharing knowledge together. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies. (In Press)

Text Learning disability, theatre making and epistemic justice - revised 17 Sept 27 .docx - Accepted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (1MB)

Abstract

This paper examines theatre making as a mechanism for epistemic enablement among people with learning disabilities, addressing the persistent epistemic injustices that marginalise their voices and experiences. Drawing on the inclusive arts-based research project I’m Me, which involved over 100 learning disabled artists across seven UK arts organisations, the paper presents a practice-based analysis of Safe as Houses, a performance developed by Open Theatre Company. Combining disability studies, arts-based research, and non-representational theory, the study explores how creative processes facilitate alternative forms of knowledge production that are embodied, relational, and collaborative. Through individual reflection, collective meaning-making, and performance-making, learning disabled artists generated and shared lived experience knowledge while developing individual and collective forms of epistemic agency. The findings demonstrate that theatre-making challenges dominant logocentric understandings of knowledge, creating accessible spaces for learning disabled artists to think, communicate, and author knowledge on their own terms, thereby contributing to epistemic justice.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	In Press
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general > NX456.5.P38 Performance Art
School/Department:	School of the Arts
Institutes:	Institute for Social Justice
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/15813

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