Youth, Disability, and Resistance

Youth, Disability, and Resistance offers a powerful account of how young disabled people across Europe are reshaping disability activism and reimagining the future of social change. Drawing on rich empirical research, Miro Griffiths examines why activism matters to young disabled people, what restricts their participation, how social movements can become more inclusive, what forms of resistance are needed to challenge unjust social worlds, and what needs to be considered regarding the future of disabled people’s resistance practices.

It is argued that young disabled activists are not marginal within disabled people’s social movements. Their participation and influence are essential to the renewal, sustainability, and transformative potential of disabled people’s resistance. Young disabled people’s activism emerges as both defensive and world-making – protecting hard-won rights while also imagining accessible, inclusive, and interdependent futures. Griffiths shows how participation is shaped by hostility, inaccessibility, financial precarity, and exclusions around age and expertise, while also highlighting the importance of hope, knowledge exchange, collective solidarity, and intersectional organising.

Combining conceptual depth with activist insight, this book positions disability activism as a creative and disruptive force. It will be essential reading for scholars and students of disability studies, youth studies, sociology, and social movement studies, as well as for activists, civil society organisations, and policymakers committed to justice and liberation.

Miro Griffiths is an Associate Professor of Social Policy and Disability Studies at the University of Leeds, UK