Conversation as Mad Method and Manifestation of Care in the Academy

Abstract

This paper introduces conversation as an analytic strategy amenable to building Mad method/ologies and disability justice praxis in the academy. As a method, we argue that conversation disrupts traditional academic notions of what counts as research and who are counted as contributors. This work troubles the conventional and siloed approach to scholarship in the social sciences and humanities, which predominantly values independent scholarly pursuits yielding single-authored outputs and reproduces a competitive and individualizing academic culture. Crucially, our collaborative research process manifested a care ethic that was responsive to the needs of each contributor. Conversation as Mad method prompts a reconceptualization of how we engage in qualitative research through the power of community collectives, shared labour and analysis, resisting the neoliberal university and its individualist, ableist, and sanist logics and practices.