Expertise and Research

.:: Short Bio

My research is located primarily in disability studies, feminist theory, education and health studies. As such, my work is very interdisciplinary and is concerned primarily with issues of social justice and social change.

A great part of my research has focused on investigating chronic illness from a disability studies perspective, focusing on the barriers that people with chronic conditions experience in their everyday lives. These included barriers in employment, access to health care and education. The role of both ableism and disablism in the lives of people with chronic conditions was explored in detail. Another aspect of this work looked at the lay knowledges and strategies people develop with and through their experience of impairment, which are often not recognised by established systems of knowledge such as biomedicine. As a result of this research, I have delivered workshops on chronic illness in the workplace to institutions such as the NHS.

Other work has explored issues of gender and disability and issues of access and disability in Higher Education.

I have published in numerous international journals and edited collections and am currently editing a journal issues with Dr. Emma Shepperd about representations of chronic illness.

I have presented my work at several reputable and peer-reviewed national and international conferences. I have also been invited to participate in panels in prestigious non-academic conferences, such as AHTV: Exploring Research in Television.

.:: Education and Training

• Post Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (Liverpool Hope University)
• PhD, Lancaster University (Health Studies/Disability Studies/Gender Studies).
• MPhil (Sociology/Post-colonial Studies), Faculty of Economics/Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal. Dissertation Title: Voyage to the Inside of the Shadow: Disability, Chronic Illness and Invisibility in an Ableist Society.
• Degree in Modern Languages and Literatures, English and German, (Equivalent to an Honours Degree), Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Coimbra.

.:: Selected Publications

Bê, A. (2020) “Feminism and disability: A cartography of multiplicity.” In: N. Watson and S. Vehmas
(eds) Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies – Second Edition. Abingdon: Routledge. pp. 421-435.

Bê, A. (2019) Disabled people and subjugated knowledges: new understandings and strategies developed by people living with chronic conditions, Disability & Society, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2019.1596785

Bê, A. (2019) Ableism and disablism in higher education: The case of two students living with chronic illnesses. ALTER, European Journal of Disability Research, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alter.2019.03.004

Bê, A. (2016) Disablism in the lives of people living with a chronic illness in England and Portugal, Disability & Society, 31:4, 465-480, DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2016.1181048

Bê, Ana (2014), “Feminist Disability Studies” in Colin Cameron (Ed.), Disability Studies: a Student’s Guide. London: Sage.

Bê, Ana (2012), “Feminism and Disability: A Cartography of Multiplicity” in Nick Watson, Alan Roulstone, Carol Thomas (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies. London: Routledge. – A draft version is available here..

Bê [Pereira], Ana (2006), “O Corpo(-)Sentido: Reflexões sobre Deficiência e Doença Crónica”. Revista Cabo dos Trabalhos, N.º 2. Revista Electrónica do Centro de Estudos Sociais disponível em http://cabodostrabalhos.ces.uc.pt/n2/ensaios.php [“Embodiment and the Body Felt: Reflections on Disability and Chronic Illness”]

.::Invited Lectures

2013 – joint paper with Carol Thomas, Gender, Disability and Sexuality, 25^th of April, 2013. Talk integrated in the Seminar entitled “Ageing and disability: ‘writing in’ gender and sexuality”, part of the ESRC Seminar Series, “Opportunities, challenges & tensions: linking the ageing and disability rights agendas”, Division of Health Research, Lancaster University.

Bê, Ana (2012), Engaging with Ableism: Unravelling the Codes that Frame Normate Notions of Dis/Ability and Intersecting them with Other Sites of Dominance. 8^th of June, 2012, Seminar Series, Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies, Lancaster University, Lancaster, England.

.::Research Papers and Posters Presented at Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums

Bê, Ana (2014), Constructing the Human – Chronic illness and Normalcy. 5th Annual International Conference Theorising Normalcy and the Mundane. University of Sheffield 7th and 8th July 2014. Oral presentation.

Bê, Ana (2013), Contextual Constellations: Addressing Wellness in the Lives of People Living with a Chronic Illness in England and Portugal. New Thinking on Living with Dying Project, Chronic Illness and Well-Being Research Workshop, 10th June 2013, University of Liverpool, England. Oral presentation.

Bê, Ana (2012), The Role of Ableism and Disablism in People’s Experiences of Chronic illness. Disability Studies Conference, 11-13 September 2012, Lancaster University, England. Oral presentation. Abstract published in book of abstracts.

Bê. Ana (2011), Some Epistemological Contributions from Feminist Disability Studies, Women’s Worlds 2011, 3-7 July 2011, Ottawa-Gatineau, Canada.

Paper presented at a symposium I co-organized for the conference along with Lennita Ruggi, Rose Barboza and Léa Tosold. The symposium’s title was “Exploring Feminist Epistemologies Through Lived Bodily Experience” – Women’s Worlds 2011, 3-7 July 2011, Ottawa-Gatineau, Canada.

Bê [Pereira], Ana (2010), (De)-Constructing the Ideal Neoliberal Subject – Thoughts from a Framework of Feminist Disability Studies. Disability Studies Conference, 7-9 September 2010, Lancaster University, England. – Oral presentation

Bê [Pereira], Ana (2010), Our Knowledges; Our Lives: The Importance of Reclaiming Disabled People’s Subjugated Knowledges. Critical Disability Studies Conference, 12-13 May, MMU, Manchester, England. – Oral presentation

Bê [Pereira], Ana (2010), Reaching Out to the Margins: Debates around Feminism and Disability. Women’s Liberation Movement @ 40 Conference – Continuities and Change, 12-13 March, Ruskin College, Oxford, England. – Oral presentation

Bê [Pereira], Ana (2009),  Shifting Perspectives,Heightening Awareness: Weaving Dialogues Between Postcolonial Theory and Disability Studies. Literary, Cultural, and Disability Studies: A Tripartite Approach to Postcolonialism, (1^st of June 2009), Lancaster University, Lancaster – Oral presentation

Bê [Pereira], Ana (2009), Invisible Under the Clinical Gaze: Chronically Ill Women’s Encounters with Biomedicine. 7th European Feminist Research Conference (4-7 June 2009, Utrecht, Holland) – Oral presentation

Be [Pereira], Ana (2009), The Willfulness of Non-Normativity: The Hybrid and Fluid Experience of The Chronically Ill Body. The Perfect Body: Between Normativity and Consumerism (organized by the European Science Foundation), (9-13 October, Linkoping, Sweden).  – Poster presentation

Bê [Pereira], Ana (2008), Voyage to the Inside of the Shadow: Women, Disability, Chronic Illness and Invisibility in an Ableist Society, 2008 Disability Studies Conference, 2-4 September 2008, University of Lancaster, England. – Oral presentation

Detailed CV available on request. Please email ana [at] anabeonline.com.