Crip Flexibility and Painful Analysis: Critical Disability Methodologies of Swedish Welfare State Austerity

Christine Bylund

doi:10.16993/sjdr.1257

Crip Flexibility and Painful Analysis: Critical Disability Methodologies of Swedish Welfare State Austerity

Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research

Volume 28 (2026): Issue 1

By: Christine Bylund

Open Access

|Jan 2026

Abstract

This article contributes to methodological debates in critical disability studies (CDS) by introducing the concepts of crip flexibility and painful analysis to describe how disability research is shaped under austerity. Drawing on autoethnography and qualitative interviews with disabled people in Sweden, it analyzes how austerity politics and academic ableism contour the methodological and affective orientations of a disabled researcher. Crip flexibility names the situated negotiations of access, method, and fieldwork that emerge when research is conducted in conditions of structural inaccessibility, while painful analysis captures the emotional labor and cripistemological work of interpreting data when one’s own precarity is at stake. Grounded in the Swedish welfare state context, the article offers a distinct Nordic perspective to international CDS, showing how the production of disability knowledge is deeply entangled with welfare politics under austerity.

References

Ahmed, Sara. 2006. “Orientations: Toward a queer phenomenology.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 12 (4): 543–574. DOI: 10.1215/10642684-2006-002
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Ahmed, Sara. 2014. The cultural politics of emotion. Edinburgh: Taylor and Francis. DOI: 10.1515/9780748691142
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Apelmo, Elisabeth, and Cecilia Nordgren. 2022. “Still waiting for the hand to be raised: On being crip killjoys at an ableist university.” In Accessibility denied: Understanding inaccessibility and everyday resistance to inclusion for persons with disabilities, edited by Hanna Egard, Kristofer Hansson, and David Wästerfors, 107–22. Abingdon: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003120452-7
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Barnes, Colin. 2002. “What a difference a decade makes: Reflections on doing ‘emancipatory’ disability research”. Disability & Society 18 (1): 3–17. DOI: 10.1080/713662197
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Berggren, J. Ulrika, Ulla M. Emilsson, and Ann-Sofie Bergman. 2021. “Strategies of austerity used in needs assessments for personal assistance – changing Swedish social policy for persons with disabilities.” European Journal of Social Work 24 (3): 380–392. DOI: 10.1080/13691457.2019.1639627
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Brennan, Ciara, Rannveig Traustadóttir, Peter Anderberg, and James Rice. 2016. “Are cutbacks to personal assistance violating Sweden’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities?” Laws 5 (2): 1–15. DOI: 10.3390/laws5020023
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Bylund, Christine. 2022. “Anakrona livsvillkor: En studie av funktionalitet, möjligheter och begär i den föränderliga svenska välfärdsstaten.” PhD diss., Umeå University.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Bylund, Christine. 2025. “Feeling the fear of many: Orienting affects in Swedish austerity politics.” Frontiers in Sociology 10 (1411526). DOI: 10.3389/fsoc.2025.1411526
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Campbell, K. Fiona. 2009. Contours of ableism: the production of disability and abledness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1057/9780230245181
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Chandler, Eliza, Megan Johnson, Chelsea Temple Jones, Elisabeth Harrison, and Carla Rice. 2024. “Enacting reciprocity and solidarity: Critical access as methodology.” Australian Feminist Studies 38 (115–116): 1–18. DOI: 10.1080/08164649.2024.2333055
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Dolmage, Jay Timothy. 2017. Academic ableism: Disability and higher education. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. DOI: 10.3998/mpub.9708722
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Ellis, Carolyn, Tony E. Adams, and Arthur P. Bochner. 2011. “Autoethnography: An overview.” Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung 36 (4): 273–90.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Esping-Andersen, Gösta. 1996. The three worlds of welfare capitalism. London: Polity Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Friedner, Michelle, Deeva Kasnitz, and Zoë Wool. 2018. “What I Wish I Knew about Anthropology and Disability: Notes toward a More Enabling Anthropology.” Accessed August 25, 2025. https://anthrodendum.org/2018/01/10/what-i-wish-i-knew-about-anthropology-and-disability-notes-toward-a-more-enabling-anthropology/
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Garland-Thomson, Rosemary. 2005. “Feminist Disability Studies.” Sign 30 (2): 1557–1587. DOI: 10.1086/423352
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Glazko, Kate S., Momona Yamagami, Aashaka Desai, Kelly Avery Mack, Venkatesh Potluri, Xuhai Xu, and Jennifer Mankoff. 2023. “An Autoethnographic Case Study of Generative Artificial Intelligence’s Utility for Accessibility.” In Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ‘23), 1–8, New York: ACM. DOI: 10.1145/3597638.3614548
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Goodley, Dan. 2014. Dis/ability studies : theorising disablism and ableism. First edition. London: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203366974
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Goodley, Dan, Kirsty Liddiard, and Katherine Runswick-Cole. 2018. “Feeling disability: Theories of affect and critical disability studies.” Disability and Society 33 (2): 197–217. DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2017.1402752
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Hamraie, Aimi. 2017. Building access: Universal design and the politics of disability. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. DOI: 10.5749/minnesota/9781517901639.001.0001
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
HejaOlika. 2025. “Stärkt rätt till personlig assistans 2024.” Heja Olika, January 9, 2025. Accessed August 29, 2025. https://hejaolika.se/artikel/starkt-ratt-till-personlig-assistans-2024/#utvecklingen-for-assistans-under-20232024-i-diagram-och-tabeller
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Hochschild, Arlie. 1983. The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Hughes, Bill. 2015. “Disabled people as counterfeit citizens: The politics of resentment past and present.” Disability and Society 30 (7): 991–1004. DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2015.1066664
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Jackson-Perry, David, Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, Jenn Annable, and Marianthi Kourti. 2020. “Sensory strangers: Travels in normate sensory worlds.” In Neurodiversity studies: A new critical paradigm, edited by Hanna Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, Nick Chown, and Anna Stenning, 149–162. Abingdon: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780429322297-12
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Johnson, Merri Lisa, and Robert McRuer. 2014. “Cripistemologies: Introduction.” Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies 8 (4): 127–147. DOI: 10.3828/jlcds.2014.12
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kafer, Alison. 2013. Feminist, queer, crip. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. DOI: 10.2979/6841.0
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kasnitz, Devva, and Russell P. Shuttleworth. 2001. “Introduction: Anthropology in disability studies.” Disability Studies Quarterly 21 (3): 2–17. DOI: 10.18061/dsq.v21i3.289
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kent, Mike, Katie Ellis, Rachel Robertsson, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson. 2018. “Looking to the future for critical disability studies: Disciplines, perspectives and manifestos.” In Interdisciplinary approaches to disability: Looking towards the future (Vol. 2), edited by Katie Ellis, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Mike Kent, and Rachel Robinson, 1–6. Abingdon: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781351053228-1
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Larsdotter, Maria. 2018. “Discursive (Dis)orders of Disability Research: A Critical Discourse Analysis of ‘Participation in Research’ in Swedish Disability Research Articles and Overviews.” Master’s thesis, Halmstad University. https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-38897.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Lewin, Barbro. 2021. “Making the law invisible: How bureaucratic resistance makes support inaccessible.” In Accessibility denied: Understanding inaccessibility and everyday resistance to inclusion for persons with disabilities, edited by Hanna Egard, Kristofer Hansson, and David Wästerfors, 171–185 Abingdon: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003120452-11
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Liddiard, Kirsty. 2013. “Reflections on the process of researching disabled people’s sexual lives.” Sociological Research Online, 18 (3): 105–117. DOI: 10.5153/sro.3116
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Liddiard, Kirsty, Lucy Atkinson, Katherine Evans, Bethan Gibson, Dan Goodley, Josie Hale, Rachel Lawson, Katherine Runswick-Cole, Rachel Spurr, Elisabeth Vogelmann, et al. 2024. “‘No-one’s contribution is more valid than another’s’: Committing to inclusive democratic methodologies.” Research in Education 121 (2): 158–74. DOI: 10.1177/00345237241249376
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Lindberg, Lars. 2016. Forskningen som haltar: Svensk forskning om funktionshinder [Research That Falters: Swedish Research on Disabilities]. Stockholm: Hörselskadades Riksförbund.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Mauldin, Laura. 2023. “On trauma in research on illness, disability, and care.” In Crip authorship: Disability as method, edited by Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez, 131–41. New York: New York University Press. DOI: 10.18574/nyu/9781479819386.003.0015
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
McRuer, Robert. 2006. Crip theory: Cultural signs of queerness and disability. New York: New York University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
McRuer, Robert. 2018. Crip times: Disability, globalization, and resistance. New York: New York University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Minich, Julie Avril. 2016. “Enabling whom? Critical disability studies now.” Lateral 5 (1). DOI: 10.25158/L5.1.9
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Norberg, Ida. 2019. “Life in the hands of welfare bureaucracy: The impact of austerity on disabled people in Sweden”. PhD diss., University of Glasgow.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Norberg, Ida. 2021. “Austerity as bureaucratic violence: Understanding the impact of (neoliberal) austerity on disabled people in Sweden.” Sociology 56 (4): 655–672. DOI: 10.1177/00380385211051210
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Oliver, Mike. 1992. “Changing the social relations of research production.” Disability, Handicap & Society 7 (2): 101–14. DOI: 10.1080/02674649266780141
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Price, Maragret, and Stephanie L. Kerschbaum. 2016. “Stories of methodology: Interviewing sideways, crooked and crip.” Canadian Journal of Disability Studies 5 (3): 18–56. DOI: 10.15353/cjds.v5i3.295
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Rogers, Emily. 2023. “Virtual ethnography”. In Crip authorship: Disability as method, edited by Mara Mills and Rebecca Sanchez, 93–98. New York: New York University Press. DOI: 10.18574/nyu/9781479819386.003.0011
Open DOI Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Ryan, Frances. 2019. Crippled: Austerity and the demonization of disabled people. London: Verso.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Socialstyrelsen. 2023. “Förändringar av ledsagning över tid – Rapport till regeringen som svar på uppdrag.” Article no. 2023-6-8641. Stockholm: Socialstyrelsen. Retrieved from https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/publikationer/forandringar-av-ledsagning-over-tid--rapport-till-regeringen-som-svar-pa-uppdrag-2023-6-8641/
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Tuutma, Marina, and Anna Martinmäki. 2023. “Rätt förutsättningar för sjukskrivning: Betänkande av Utredningen om läkarintygets betydelse i sjukpenningärenden.” SOU 2023:48, Swedish Government Official Reports (Statens offentliga utredningar). Stockholm: Government Offices of Sweden.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). 2024. “Concluding Observations on the Combined Second and Third Periodic Reports of Sweden.” Geneva: United Nations.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article