Dr Miro Griffiths discusses his new book on Youth, Disability, and Resistance

Dr Miro Griffiths has recently published a new book, Youth, Disability, and Resistance: Producing Change through Activism and Social Movements.

Ahead of the book's publication on 27 August, Miro shares key insights from the research, reflects on the inspirations behind it, and discusses what comes next.

Please tell us about your new book

My new book, Youth, Disability, and Resistance: Producing Change through Activism and Social Movements, explores the political lives and activism of young disabled people across Europe. It challenges the tendency to portray young disabled people primarily as recipients of care, services or policy, and instead examines them as political actors who are actively producing knowledge, building movements and developing new forms of resistance.

The book considers how young disabled people become involved in activism, the barriers they encounter and the relationships, organisations and ideas that sustain their participation. It examines issues including inaccessible activist spaces, limited financial resources, inadequate personal assistance, transport, fatigue and hostility within political movements. At the same time, it highlights the creativity of young disabled activists and the ways they use social media, political education, collective support and transnational networks to create change.

At its centre is a broader question about political participation – who is able to take part in activism, whose knowledge is valued and what needs to change if social movements are to become genuinely accessible and inclusive?

Can you give an insight into the research process and journey leading up to publication?

The book developed from a Leverhulme Fellowship research project focused on youth disability activism across Europe. The research included a survey of 203 young disabled people and 25 in-depth interviews with activists from different countries, backgrounds and political traditions.

The research process involved listening carefully to how young disabled people understood their own activism, rather than beginning with a fixed definition of what activism should look like. Participants spoke about formal campaigning, protest and involvement in disabled people’s organisations, but also about online organising, writing, cultural work, mutual support and the creation of safer and more accessible political spaces.

A significant part of the research journey involved recognising the gap between the language of inclusion and the material conditions required for participation. Activism requires time, money, energy, accessible transport, personal assistance and supportive relationships. For many disabled people, these resources cannot be taken for granted.

The journey to publication was also about taking seriously the political concepts and practices being developed by young disabled activists themselves. Their insights shaped the arguments of the book and encouraged me to think differently about resistance, solidarity, access and collective political action.

What do you hope readers will take away from the book?

I hope readers will recognise that young disabled people are not politically passive. They are already organising, theorising and producing change, often under very difficult material and discursive conditions.

I also hope the book encourages readers to think more critically about accessibility. Accessibility is not simply a matter of inviting disabled people into existing organisations or providing isolated – and fragmented – adjustments. It requires us to reconsider how political spaces are structured and arranged.

More broadly, I hope readers will see disability activism as relevant to wider questions about democracy, social movements and political change. The experiences of young disabled activists reveal much about exclusion, but they also offer important ideas about interdependence, solidarity, collective access and the creation of more liveable political futures – for the benefit of all communities.

Can you share what is next for your research?

I am currently working on my next book, which explores the tensions surrounding disability politics, the philosophy of independent living and contemporary debates about assisted dying.

The project examines the extent to which the principles of independent living are incompatible with the concepts and implementation strategies associated with assisted dying. Independent living and the social interpretation of disability emerged from disabled people’s struggles against institutionalisation, dependency and the denial of control over everyday life. It is grounded in collective rights, material support, interdependence and the belief that disabled people should have the resources required to live with dignity and equality.

Assisted dying is often framed through the language of individual autonomy and choice. My research considers what happens when these ideas are implemented within societies where disabled people continue to experience inadequate social care, inaccessible services, poverty, isolation and pressure to justify the value of their lives.

The book will explore the political and philosophical tensions between these frameworks, while also examining how law, policy, culture and public narratives shape the conditions under which choices are made. At its centre, the research and book asks whether a meaningful account of autonomy is possible without first securing the conditions that make independent living and genuine self-determination possible.

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