Chantal Spencer

I am a design, researcher, activist, and maker with a 1st class degree in 3D Design and craft. My work focuses on (im)mobilities  associated with isolation for marginalised people, with a particular focus on disability. My professional background is diverse and includes supporting vulnerable people from birth to palliative care. I am a mother and a neurodivergent woman who has recently become physically disabled with chronic health conditions. I am working within feminist disability theory  , mobility justice  and Disability justice  principles applied to participatory design practices. I seek to facilitate sustainable change by addressing the systemic failures that lead to oppression for marginalised people.

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The output of this project is an epistemological framework from which to begin building a practice of sustainable changemaking that centres Minimising the Burden of Change on the Shoulders of the Oppressed (MBCSO) within design and academic research practices. This work critiques traditional forms of participatory design and research methods that can reinforce problematic power structures by appropriating and mining the pain of those who live with oppression through extractive research processes, even when the researchers are intentions  are to be inclusive. 

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This work is aimed at designers and researchers engaging in participatory design research (including myself) asking: How can we balance paternalistic design practices that speak for others with working practices that reflect the true nature of the “nothing about us without us” ideology of inclusion? 

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To see more work by Chantal Spencer visit : www.cspencerdesign.co.uk