Conference Program

This contribution aims to show the potential of Embodied Inquiry (Thanem & Knight, 2019; Leigh & Brown, 2021; Ferri, 2022) as a research methodology focused on empowerment and the possibility of being a sounding board for the voice of disabled people and bodies (Oliver, 2023; Gottardo, 2025a), thereby democratizing research and educational contexts. Starting from studies on embodiment (Gomez Paloma, Raiola & Tafuri, 2015) and Crip Studies (Valtellina, 2024; Centrone, 2025), a survey conducted with women with fibromyalgia will be presented, aimed at intercepting the knowledge generated by bodies about bodies themselves.

Crip Studies is an interdisciplinary and critical field which, starting from Crip Theory (McRuer, 2006), addresses identity, intersectional and multi-perspective dimensions (Costantino, Centrone & Bocci, 2025), often not considered within Disability Studies (Romano, 2025). The aim is to identify and unmask the construct of ability as an imposed norm, a canon that defines what is normal and desirable (Bocci & Straniero, 2020), while proposing to subvert it.

Embodied Inquiry, as a research methodology focused on the body as a perceptive, communicative, and expressive tool (Leigh & Brown, 2021), moves precisely in this direction: considering the uniqueness and specificity of everyone. This research methodology, developed from neuroscience studies, seeks to capture bodily experiences, inscribed in the body, which are often difficult to communicate in words (Gottardo, 2025b). Thus, people with disabilities do not “disappear” from research (Giaconi et al., 2000), but become its heart, and the marginality and silence of their bodies (Bocci, 2000) becomes protagonism and a living voice.

Through the presentation of a survey involving 10 women with fibromyalgia, we want to show how research can be configured as a practice attentive to the rhythms of the body, its suffering and fatigue, respectful of crip time (Kafer, 2013). A research practice conducted within a theater workshop, a protected space, a “suspension of life” (Cappa, 2016), where each woman is free to be herself, vulnerable, fragile, beyond the logic of ‘normality’ and performativity. A research practice that, through a multimodal approach using tools such as artistic performance, the production of artefacts and reflective writing, gives voice to and values the experience of women with a chronic illness that is (in)visible and often not recognized as a disability (Pieri, 2023). A research practice in which the researchers continually question their own position to avoid falling into the “easy way out” of epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2007), recognizing themselves as an “instrument” of amplification, at the service of women with fibromyalgia. A practical research approach that does not talk about disability but seeks to create knowledge from this perspective. A perspective that allows us to rethink places of education, to transform them into places of resistance, into democratic places (bell hooks, 1998).