A forest in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal with all the wonderful colours of the Fall. Arseli, an olive-skinned woman in her early 40s, is standing and gently smiling at the camera. She has with black-framed glasses, and is wearing an orange puffy vest on top of a jean jacket and a black hoodie, and her hair is hidden under a grey beanie.
Photo by Francois Vincent 2021
Dr. Arseli Dokumaci,
- Associate Professor, Communication Studies
- Canada Research Chair in Critical Disability Studies and Media Technologies
- Director, Access in the Making (AIM) Lab
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Sign in to editResearch areas: critical disability studies, performance studies, research-creation, medical anthropology, environmental humanities
Contact information
Biography
Education
I am an interdisciplinary scholar and media-maker. My scholarly and creative work lies at the crossovers of critical disability studies, medical anthropology, environmental humanities and performance studies. In my research, and research-creation videos, I explore how disabled people go about their everyday lives, experience shrinkage, and improvise activist affordances. I am particularly interested in exploring how disability can be a critical a method to rethink and practice media in new ways.
FQRSC postdoctoral fellow, McGill University, Department of Social Studies of Medicine
ERC postdoctoral fellow, University of Copenhagen, Department of Anthropology
Postdoc, Communication Studies, Concordia University
PhD, Performance Studies, Aberystwyth University
MA, Film and Communication, Bahçeşehir University
BA, Translation and Interpreting, Boğaziçi University
Publications
Publications
Book
Dokumaci, A. (2023). Activist Affordances: How disabled people improvise more habitable worlds. Duke University Press.
(Selected) Articles
Dokumaci, A., Besette-Viens, R., Goberdhan, N., Mazowita, A., Lucas, S. & Stainton, J. (2023). Spaced Apart: Autoethnographies of Access throughout the COVID 19 Pandemic. Space and Culture Journal, 26(3), 365–382.
Dokumaci, A. (2022). Vision Portraits: Rodney Evans and Rites of Passage into Blindness. Film Quarterly, 76(2), 48–54.
Dokumaci, A. (2022). Off Limits: When Desire for Intellectual Access is Ruptured. Fieldsights. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/off-limits-when-desire-for-intellectual-access-is-ruptured
Dokumaci, A. (2020). People as affordances: Building disability worlds through care intimacy. Current Anthropology, 61 (suppl. 21), S97-S108.
Dokumaci, A. (2019). A Theory of Micro-activist Affordances: Disability, Improvisation and Disorienting Affordances. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 118 (3), 491–519.
Dokumaci, A. (2018). Disability as Method: Interventions in the Habitus of Ableism through Media-Creation. Disability Studies Quarterly, 38(3).
Dokumaci, A. (2017). Performing Pain and Inflammation: Rendering the Invisible Visible”, AMA Journal of Ethics, Special section: Images of Healing and Learning, 19(8), 834-838.
Dokumaci, A. (2017). Vital Affordances / Occupying Niches: An Ecological Approach to Disability and Performance. RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 22(3), 393-412.
Dokumaci, A. (2016). Affordance Creations of Disability Performance: Limits of a Disabled Theater. Theatre Research in Canada, 37(2), 164-199.
Dokumaci, A. (2013). On Falling Ill. Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 18(4), 107-15.
Artistic performances
Research-creation
Video Production
Dokumaci, A. (Director). (2022). Activist affordances: How disabled people improvise more habitable worlds.Independent Production.
Dokumaci, A. (Director). (2018). Disability as method: Audio-description as crip time [Video]. Independent Production. Ohio State University. Libraries. https://kb.osu.edu/handle/1811/86248
Exhibition Participation
Dokumaci, A. (2022). Activist affordances: How disabled people improvise more habitable worlds [Video]. VIII Bienal de la Fundación ONCE, La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain. https://www.lacasaencendida.es/cine/pildoras-lentejuelas-14061
Dokumaci, A. (2021). AIM Logo description as poetic writing. Audio description in the making. https://audiodescription.accessinthemaking.ca/AIM-Logo-Image-Description-as-Poetic-Writing
Dokumaci, A. (2018). Disability as method: Audio-description as crip time [Video installation]. Vibrations Exhibition, Concordia University 4th Space, Montreal, Canada.
Dokumaci, A. (2018). Performing pain and invisible disabilities [Drawing]. Vibe: Challenging Ableism and Audism through the Arts Symposium, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.
Dokumaci, A. (2017). Performing pain and invisible disabilities [Drawing]. MANIFESTO: A Modest Proposal, Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont, United States.
Dokumaci, A. (2015). ‘Taskscape’ in its making: Disabled ways of living OTHERWISE [Video installation]. The Flesh of the World, The Doris McCarthy Gallery, Canada.
Dokumaci, A. (2014). Invisible disabilities and emerging taskscapes [Video installation]. Performing Crip Time, Space4Art, San Diego, USA.
Dokumaci, A. (2013). Invisible disabilities and emerging taskscapes [Video installation]. Differential Mobilities, Concordia University Gallery, Montreal, Canada.
Awards
Activist Affordances: How disabled People Improvise More Habitable Worlds (DUP 2023).
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Winner of the 2023 Alison Piepmeier Prize, presented by the National Women's Studies Association
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Winner of the 2024 Gertrude J. Robinson Book Prize, presented by the Canadian Communication Association
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Finalist for the 2024 Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Outstanding Book Award
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Finalist for the 2024 Rachel Carson Prize, presented by 4S