De-ableising Theory

Peter Raisbeck is Associate Professor of Architectural Practice at the Melbourne School of Design at The University of Melbourne. Since 2006 he has taught Architectural Practice, Design Activism and Contemporary Architectural Archives. His turn to Disability Studies and architecture is a result of his own lived experience of disability. In September of 2018 he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. He currently sits on the board of the MND research collective a national group of medical researchers working across the MND research landscape. He is a registered architect and sits on the committee of the Australian Institute of Architects National Committee on Gender Equity. His book, Architects, Sustainability and the Climate Emergency: A Political Ecology was published in November 2022. This book points to how architects can approach broad issues of well-being in light of the climate emergency.

Lauren Pikó is an interdisciplinary scholar researching cultural histories of landscape and knowledge production, through and with disability. Currently a lived experience research assistant at the University of Melbourne’s Assessment and Evaluation Research Centre in the Faculty of Education, she has also coordinated Melbourne School of Design’s graduate research methods workshops since 2019. Her research has been published in Planning Perspectives, Heritage, and History Australia.

Raelene West’s research field is critical disability studies, with a focus on delivery of support services. Dr West has also been involved in disability advocacy, has been on numerous disability committees and has lived experience of disability, becoming a quadriplegic as a result of a car accident 20 years ago. She has a PhD in Sociology - Disability from the University of Melbourne and has worked for several years as an early career researcher on various disability and aged care research studies. She is currently working as a Social Researcher at the University of Sydney and at Melbourne Disability Institute (MDI) - University of Melbourne. She has publications in the areas of ableism, individualisied funding models, marketisation of service delivery, use of technology in service delivery and human rights.