Conceptual and methodological issues in research with disabled youth in the Global South: towards decolonial futures in pandemic times

This chapter engages with conceptual and methodological complicities and complexities that may arise when working with young, disabled people in the Global South in a pandemic context. Drawing on intersectional and decolonial research in disability studies, we ask: What conceptual, epistemological, and methodological challenges do researchers encounter when learning with and from disabled youth who have both experiences of exclusion and rich insights into how to build decolonial alliances? What scholarly work has been produced in these contexts, and how does such knowledge reflect colonial and ableist logics of power which have been exclusive of young, disabled children and youth? How can adult researchers create participatory, community-engaged, and decolonial spaces for disabled youth and children in the Global South to transform existing power relations? This chapter will contextualize research with disabled youth impacted by the pandemic, highlighting intersectional and structural forces that shape these young people’s positions, with attention to disability, queerness, racism, and gender. We further argue for addressing this epistemic injustice by connecting decolonial alliances between decolonial disability studies and Southern youth epistemologies as ways of re-imagining disabled youth’s futures.