24 Jun 2026

Embodied knowledge creation: EASA online workshop on disability, neurodivergence and accessibility

Online event

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Wednesday, 24 June 2026, 4pm CEST / 3pm BST / 10am EDT

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This workshop explores how embodied, disabled, sensory, creative, and community-based practices can reshape anthropological knowledge-making. Through Julia Sauma’s work on quietening and the unspoken, and Petra Kuppers’ eco-somatic community media experiments, the session asks how research methods can become more attentive to access, vulnerability, and collective forms of participation.

The two speakers will give presentations of approximately 30 minutes each, followed by around 30 minutes for discussion:

Petra Kuppers (University of Michigan)
Disability, Plant Lives, Community Media Experiments: Eco Soma Approaches to Embodied Artistic Research

Julia F. Sauma (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Quietening: on methods for capturing the unspoken

Speakers

Professor

Petra Kuppers

University of Michigan

Prof Petra Kuppers (she/her) is a disability culture activist and a community performance artist. She grounds herself in disability culture methods, and uses somatics, performance, media work, visual art, and speculative writing to engage audiences toward more socially just and enjoyable futures. Her latest academic study is the award-winning Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters (UoMinnesota Press, 2022, open access). She teaches at the University of Michigan, was a 2022 Dance/USA Fellow, and a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow.

Website

Dr

Julia F. Sauma

Goldsmiths, University of London

Dr Julia F. Sauma (she/her) is a Hard of Hearing Brazilian researcher who examines different methodologies, such as ethnography, drawing, writing and performance, for understanding what it means to “be collective” within and against violent infrastructures in Brazilian cities, the Amazon region and in academic institutions. Her latest co-edited book, with Lydia Gibson, is The Ethics of Participation in Environmental Field Research: Inclusion, Collaboration and Transformation (Routledge, 2025). She is a Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Website

Chair

Dr

Panas Karampampas

Durham University

Organisers

Panas Karampampas

Durham University

Dr Panas Karampampas is a social anthropologist at Durham University. His work addresses intangible heritage governance, knowledge-making, dance and movement, goth scenes, and inclusive learning in primary and higher education, with particular attention to the frictions between policy frameworks and lived practice. Within EASA, he serves as Public Anthropology, Precarity, and Publications Liaison, and is involved in initiatives concerned with accessibility, mentoring, and more inclusive academic spaces.

Contacts

Panas Karampampas

Durham University