In September of 2015, we took hold of the reigns of DSQ, gripping with a bit of trepidation and a lot of excitement as we began reading and evaluating submissions that spread the breadth of our field. In the past three years, we have read more than 600 submissions, published 10 general issues and over-seen the publication of 2 special issues. More than that, we have built relationships with hundreds of reviewers with whom we are eternally grateful. Careful and generous reviews are the backbone of a journal like DSQ, deepening scholarship, strengthening analysis, and clarifying the purpose of why Disability Studies continues to matter.
As we write this introduction, those living with a disability are estimated at 10% of the population worldwide (650 million people). 1 The United States continues its longest war, enhancing the vulnerability of individuals world-wide, but particularly in zones of conflict in the Middle East. 2 Also enhancing the vulnerability of individuals is the climate crisis. This Fall the United Nations released its Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, issuing the most comprehensive and bleak prediction yet of a future of more extreme weather and sea level rise 3, impacting significantly those in the low-lying countries in the global south, such as Vietnam and Chile. 4 Increasing the vulnerability of people through climate change and war increases those impacted by disability.
Disability Studies needs to be a central analytical tool as we navigate through this increasing vulnerability. Disability Studies provides epistemologies—ways of knowing—that can honor interdependency, bodymind diversity, and intersectional social justice while remaining critical of environmental, social, and political violence. Indeed, in the submissions that we have read since 2015, we have noted the increasingly expansive approach authors have taken to applying a Disability Studies analytic. We think this issue of DSQ reflects this breadth of concern and creative intervention that Disability Studies offers.
We return in this issue to the three original organizing themes that we had in our first issue together: Re-Reading, Re-Imagining, and Re-Framing. As always, these are merely suggestions for reading and thinking across the articles and ideas presented here. In Re-Reading, our authors return to published texts and ideas, offering a new way to read, from Shakespeare's King Lear and Toni Morrison's Sula to Indonesian media representations to old medical textbooks and new pharmaceutical studies. In Re-imagining, we have several articles that ask us to imagine a different kind of future, whether it is through the perspective of being able-bodied partners of disabled people, autism advocacy organizations, or disaster risk management planning in Jamaica; we can also imagine a disabled future through the perspectives of indigenous epistemologies and Deaf social movement activism in Brazil. In Re-framing, we look at new ways to frame emerging artifacts and ideas, from ableism and videogames to Mad Studies and horror films; from the neoliberal university and American Sign Language to Assistive Technology and co-creation to motherhood and habitus. Finally, in our Reviews section, our authors offer perspectives on a new memoir about chronic lyme disease, a documentary about traumatic brain injury, and several scholarly monographs and edited collections, connecting Disability Studies to design and architecture, literature, Deaf Studies and the Environmental Humanities.
A side note about the Volume 38 #1 issue: We misspelled the name of Dr. Tenisha Tevis. Our apologies.
We are excited by the field's growth as we hand the reigns of DSQ over to a new editorial team. We wish DSQ's new editors, Brenda Brueggemann and Elizabeth Brewer Olson, many hours of happy reading!
Endnotes
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https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/statistics/ Accessed November 7 2018.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/opinion/afghanistan-longest-war.html Accessed November 7 2018.
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https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2018/10/special-climate-report-1-5oc-is-possible-but-requires-unprecedented-and-urgent-action/ Accessed November 7 2018.
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https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2018-01-24/why-climate-change-worries-these-countries-most Accessed November 7 2018.
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