The Disability Justice Research Cluster at the Centre for Feminist Research (CFR) convenes a dynamic community of graduate students, scholars, activists, policy advocates, and artists dedicated to advancing disability justice as an integral part of feminist thought and practice. Going beyond disability rights, disability justice is rooted in anti-racist, anti-colonial, queer, trans-inclusive, and anti-capitalist feminist politics; this cluster foregrounds the lived experiences, leadership, and creative knowledge of disabled, mad, and deaf people.
We critically examine how ableism operates across policies, institutions, technologies, and cultural systems — and explore transformative possibilities for more just, accessible futures. This includes a deliberate focus on speaking back to ableist structures within the university itself, using collaborative, evidence-based research to make visible and challenge institutional exclusions. Engaging deeply with decolonial and feminist methodologies, we view disability not as an individual deficit but as an expression of collective struggle, resilience, and radical possibility.
The cluster pays particular attention to how emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision-making, reinforce ableist and exclusionary practices — and how anti-ableist frameworks can challenge these harmful systems.
We are also committed to rethinking conventional notions of academic productivity and participation. Guided by disability justice principles, our collective work centres access, lived experience, slower approaches, and a refusal of siloed and compartmentalized forms of labour and identity. We strive to create a space where members can engage at their own pace, in ways that honour interdependence and holistic well-being.
This cluster envisions disability justice as a feminist practice of care, resistance, and liberation — and as a continuous process of reimagining worlds where access, interdependence, and collective freedom are fundamental.
- Build an inclusive space for collaborative research and mutual learning on disability justice.
- Produce intersectional, anti-ableist research that addresses the lived realities of disabled people globally.
- Interrogate how policies related to care, labour, family, health, migration, and technology, impact disabled lives.
- Partner with feminist, disability-led, and grassroots organizations to inform research priorities and share knowledge.
- Support the growth of cluster members through feminist mentorship, collective writing, and shared resources.
- Bridge connections between academia and community, particularly by accessible knowledge sharing (e.g., digital platform to share our research in multiple formats and languages, like ASL).
Dr. Christo El Morr is a Professor of Health Informatics and the Director of the Center of Feminist Research at York University. He is the current Health Informatics Certificate Coordinator, and has served as the Graduate Program Director (Health) and Undergraduate Program Director (Health Studies) at the School of Health Policy and Management at York University. He is also a Research Scientist at North York General Hospital, Toronto. His research subscribes to an Equity Informatics perspective; it covers Equity AI (e.g., patient readmission, disability advocacy), Patient-Centered Virtual Care (e.g., chronic disease management, mental health), Global Health Promotion for equity (e.g., equity health promotion), Human Rights Monitoring (e.g., disability rights, Gender-Based Violence). As a theologian and a poet, his wider intellectual contribution to Social Justice subscribes to a defence of the human person against alienation, whether in the form of infringement of human freedom or dignity in the face of irrational powers and exploitation. His intellectual work encompasses work of freedom from oppression (e.g., analysis of exclusive identities, communion and solidarity, freedom, liberation of reason), freedom from exploitation (e.g., analysis of illusions of freedom, political and religious exploitation), and freedom to celebrate life (e.g., poetry).
Sammy Jo (she/her) is a PhD candidate in the Critical Disability Studies program at York University. She is also a Coda (Child of deaf adults) and a research intern at the Sign Language Institute Canada. Sammy Jo’s research projects focus on participatory, feminist, and community-based approaches to education and curriculum design to work against audism and other forms of violence built into education institutions.
Nolan Krahn (he/him) is a sociology M.A. student at York University. His research interests include social movement policing, contentious politics, prefigurative politics, masculinities and disability justice. In his thesis research, Nolan aims to expand social movement tactical repertoires through Critical Disability Studies by highlighting the work of disabled activists in Toronto, Ontario. He is interested in qualitative methods, including semi-structured and oral history interviews, discourse analysis, and archival analysis. Prior to his M.A., he spent six years working as a transcriptionist for deaf, hard-of-hearing, and deafblind students. He produces electronic music in his spare time, both solo and as part of a band originally based in Treaty 1.
Maverick Smith is a Ph.D. candidate in the Critical Disability Studies program at York University whose many post-secondary qualifications have focused on working towards social justice and equity. In addition to being an academic, Maverick is an activist and an author. Maverick is excited to be part of this research cluster and is passionate about bridging the divide between activism and academia. Their post-secondary journey to their current Ph.D. program included graduating with an M.Ed. in Adult Education and Community Development from the University of Toronto. This interdisciplinary graduate degree included a Collaborative Specialization in Sexual Diversity Studies. After completing this M.Ed., Maverick then graduated with an M.A. in Critical Disability Studies from York University, where their Major Research Paper won the Bengt Lindqvist Human Rights Prize.
To connect with the Disability Justice Research Cluster, reach out to one of the members or contact the CFR Coordinator at cfr@yorku.ca.