POLDIS The Politics of Disability Identity

drawing of three people with different disabilities

Illustration: Colourbox.com

Duration
01.08.2021–31.07.2025

This project aims to provide knowledge about the politics of disability identity that will help counter the mechanisms of marginalization. Jan Grue is the Principal Investigator.

Contact

About the project

Disability is one of the clearest predictors of social marginalization and an enduring problem for global sustainable development. Although disability in recent decades has become enshrined in the framework and discourse of human rights, progress has been slow or absent in socioeconomic terms. 

There is a gap between rhetoric and results in policy: Disability still correlates with poverty, low levels of education and employment, and relatively poorer life outcomes in affluent as well as less affluent societies. 

We therefore ask whether current political, legal and cultural understandings of disability amount to a misrecognition that actually hinders material progress.

Objectives

The primary objective is to provide knowledge about the politics of disability identity that will help counter the mechanisms of marginalization.

The secondary objectives are to investigate:

• how disability is normatively framed in the fields of education, employment, culture, and the public sphere,
• what characterizes the relative progress of different groups of people with disabilities in these fields, and
• how normative framings enable or hinder progress for different groups of people with disabilities. 

Research team

  • Principal Investigator Professor Jan Grue, the Department of Sociology and Human Geography, UiO
  • Professor Luca Tateo, the Department of Special Needs Education, UiO
  • Professor Alexi Gugushvili, the Department of Sociology and Human Geography, UiO
  • Senior Researcher Halvor Hanish, AFI, Oslo Metropolitan University
  • Senior Researcher Jon Erik Finnvold, NOVA,  Oslo Metropolitan University
  • Senior Researcher Therese Dokken, NOVA, Oslo Metropolitan University
  • Doctoral Research Fellow, Marte Oppedal Vale, the Department of Special Needs Education, UiO

International advisory board

  • Susan Schweik, UC Berkeley
  • Don Kulick, Uppsala University
  • Tom Shakespeare, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Participants

Publications

  • Gugushvili, Alexi; Grue, Jan & Finnvold, Jon Erik (2025). The effect of anti-discrimination legislation on individuals with disabilities in Nordic countries. Social Science and Medicine. ISSN 0277-9536. 383. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118469. Full text in Research Archive
  • Vale, Marte Oppedal & Hanisch, Halvor Melbye (2025). How Is the Inclusion of People with Disabilities at Work Conceptualized in Norway’s Inclusive Working Life (IA) Agreement? Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research. ISSN 1501-7419. 27(1), p. 648–663. doi: 10.16993/sjdr.1268. Full text in Research Archive
  • Gugushvili, Alexi & Grue, Jan (2025). The effect of legislation on perceived disability discrimination: a heterogeneous difference-in-differences analysis. Social Forces. ISSN 0037-7732. 104(2), p. 688–709. doi: 10.1093/sf/soaf024. Full text in Research Archive
  • Grue, Jan (2025). Embodied vulnerability vs. capitalist privilege. In Vehmas, Simo Pekka & Kulick, Don (Ed.), Clashing Vulnerabilities, Disability and Conflict. Routledge. ISSN 9781041138020. doi: https:/www.routledge.com/Clashing-Vulnerabilities-Disability-and-Conflict/Kulick-Vehmas/p/book/9781041138020. Full text in Research Archive
  • Bakka, Håvard Tvedt & Grue, Jan (2025). Representations of Disability in a Large Norwegian News Corpus: A Topic Modeling Approach Informed by Critical Discourse Studies. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research. ISSN 1501-7419. 27(1), p. 240–253. doi: 10.16993/sjdr.1248. Full text in Research Archive
  • Gugushvili, Alexi; Finnvold, Jon Erik; Dokken, Therese & Grue, Jan (2025). A Register-Based Study of Early-Life Disabilities and Income Attainment in Adulthood. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World. 11, p. 1–19. doi: 10.1177/23780231251335191. Full text in Research Archive
  • Grue, Jan (2025). That Obscure Object of Embodiment: On Autotheory's Disciplinary Knowledges. In Brostoff, Alex & Cooppan, Vilashini (Ed.), Autotheories. MIT Press. ISSN 9780262552295. p. 49–66. doi: 10.7551/mitpress/15576.003.0005. Full text in Research Archive
  • Norvaišaite, Aiga & Tateo, Luca (2024). Development of performative identities in autism writers’ autobiographies. European Journal of Special Needs Education. ISSN 0885-6257. p. 1–15. doi: 10.1080/08856257.2024.2407660. Full text in Research Archive
  • Gugushvili, Alexi; Grue, Jan; Dokken, Therese & Finnvold, Jon Erik (2023). No evidence that social-democratic welfare states equalize valued outcomes for individuals with disabilities. Social Science and Medicine. ISSN 0277-9536. 339. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116361. Full text in Research Archive
  • Wee, Hana Lijun; Karkkulainen, Evelyn A. & Tateo, Luca (2023). Experiences of Epistemic Injustice among Minority Language Students Aged 6–16 in the Nordics: A Literature Review. Education Sciences. 13(4), p. 367–367. doi: 10.3390/educsci13040367. Full text in Research Archive
  • Grue, Jan (2023). The double bind of social legitimacy: On disability, the sick role, and invisible work. Sociology of Health and Illness. ISSN 0141-9889. 46(1), p. 78–94. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13692. Full text in Research Archive
  • Grue, Jan & Alnes, Silje (2023). Disability and employability: A case study of the rhetoric of neoliberal inclusionism. In Hughes, Jessica & Bartesaghi, Mariaelena (Ed.), Disability in Dialogue. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 9789027214089. p. 49–66. doi: 10.1075/ds.33.03gru. Full text in Research Archive
  • Grue, Jan (2023). Rethinking utopia : Posthumanism, transhumanism, and disability. In Lid, Inger Marie; Rembis, Micheal & Steinfeld, Edward (Ed.), Rethinking Disability and Human Rights : Participation, Equality and Citizenship. Routledge. ISSN 9780367511746. p. 45–59. doi: 10.4324/9781003052708. Full text in Research Archive
  • Grue, Jan (2023). The CRPD and the economic model of disability: undue burdens and invisible work. Disability & Society. ISSN 0968-7599. p. 1–17. doi: 10.1080/09687599.2023.2255734. Full text in Research Archive
  • Gugushvili, Alexi; Dokken, Therese; Grue, Jan & Finnvold, Jon Erik (2023). Early-life impairments, chronic health conditions, and income mobility. British Journal of Sociology. ISSN 0007-1315. 75(1), p. 56–64. doi: 10.1111/1468-4446.13064. Full text in Research Archive
  • Grue, Jan (2022). Material Bodies, Bodies of Narrative. English language notes. ISSN 0013-8282. 60(2), p. 177–179. doi: 10.1215/00138282-9890857. Full text in Research Archive
  • Grue, Jan (2022). The Death of Others. On the Narrative Rhetoric of Neoliberal Thanatopolitics. Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ). ISSN 1041-5718. 42(1). doi: 10.18061/dsq.v42i1.7799. Full text in Research Archive
  • Filho, Waldomiro Silva; Dazzani, Virginia; Tateo, Luca; Barreto, Rodrigo Gottschalk Sukerman & Marsico, Giuseppina (2022). He Knows, She Doesn’t? Epistemic Inequality in a Developmental Perspective. Review of General Psychology. ISSN 1089-2680. doi: 10.1177/10892680221143079. Full text in Research Archive
  • Grue, Jan (2022). Funksjonshemning - der kropp møter samfunn. In Frønes, Ivar & Kjølsrød, Lise (Ed.), Det norske samfunn - Bind 3. Gyldendal Akademisk. ISSN 9788205572324. p. 153–175. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA

View all works in NVA

Funding

Funded by The Research Council of Norway

Project number: 312650

The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway (SAMKUL). The total grant is NOK 11.968.000. 

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Published Nov. 22, 2024 10:35 AM - Last modified June 4, 2025 10:40 AM