From the seventeenth century to the early years of the twentieth, the population of Martha’s Vineyard manifested an extremely high rate of profound hereditary deafness. In stark contrast to the experience of most Deaf people in our own society, the Vineyarders who were born Deaf were so thoroughly integrated into the daily life of the community that they were not seen—and did not see themselves—as handicapped or as a group apart. Deaf people were included in all aspects of life, such as town politics, jobs, church affairs, and social life. How was this possible?On the Vineyard, hearing and Deaf islanders alike grew up speaking sign language. This unique sociolinguistic adaptation meant that the usual barriers to communication between the hearing and the Deaf, which so isolate many Deaf people today, did not exist.

Inaccessible Access ethnographically addresses barriers to inclusion within knowledge-making. It focuses on the social, environmental, communicative, and epistemological barriers that people with disabilities confront and embody throughout the course of their learning and living and in the specific context of their higher education institutions and in research. It is presented by a neurodiverse, disabled, and non-cis cohort of authors, all of whom acknowledge a continuum of (in)access that is available to each contributor contingent on their inherent intersectionalities and alterities. The authors and editors of this book foreground the work that has yet to be done on recognizing the value of nonnormative ways of approaching, being in, and knowing research and higher education, particularly in cases where disablity-centered epistemologies are sidelined in confrontation with institutional norms, even within existing discourses concerning equality and alterity.

From the seventeenth century to the early years of the twentieth, the population of Martha’s Vineyard manifested an extremely high rate of profound hereditary deafness. In stark contrast to the experience of most Deaf people in our own society, the Vineyarders who were born Deaf were so thoroughly integrated into the daily life of the community that they were not seen—and did not see themselves—as handicapped or as a group apart. Deaf people were included in all aspects of life, such as town politics, jobs, church affairs, and social life. How was this possible?On the Vineyard, hearing and Deaf islanders alike grew up speaking sign language. This unique sociolinguistic adaptation meant that the usual barriers to communication between the hearing and the Deaf, which so isolate many Deaf people today, did not exist.

Inaccessible Access ethnographically addresses barriers to inclusion within knowledge-making. It focuses on the social, environmental, communicative, and epistemological barriers that people with disabilities confront and embody throughout the course of their learning and living and in the specific context of their higher education institutions and in research. It is presented by a neurodiverse, disabled, and non-cis cohort of authors, all of whom acknowledge a continuum of (in)access that is available to each contributor contingent on their inherent intersectionalities and alterities. The authors and editors of this book foreground the work that has yet to be done on recognizing the value of nonnormative ways of approaching, being in, and knowing research and higher education, particularly in cases where disablity-centered epistemologies are sidelined in confrontation with institutional norms, even within existing discourses concerning equality and alterity.