Dr Emma Sheppard

Emma is a Sociologist working in Critical Disability Studies, an interdisciplinary field which centres a critical commitment to social justice. Her work explores disability and time alongside queer and crip theories. Her broader research interests encompass accessible and trauma-informed approaches to teaching and research, and creative research methods. 

Emma gained her undergraduate degree in Geography from QMUL in 2010, and then her MA in Gender, Sexuality, and Society from Birkbeck. Her PhD, in Sociology, was awarded by Edge Hill University in 2017; between 2005 and 2018 she worked as an English as an Additional Language teacher and Director of Studies. Having been a Teaching Fellow at City, University of London, and a Lecturer in Sociology at Coventry University, she joined DGES in 2023. 

Her doctoral work, which was published as a monograph ("Chronic Pain, BDSM and Crip Time") in 2023 explored experiences of pain for people who live with chronic pain and engage in BDSM, challenging normative conceptions of pain through a critical crip lens. The research explored notions and contestations of control and containment, and experience of living with a painful self; it demonstrated how the narratives of participants challenged understandings of the normal, and exposed how normative constructions of pain are a part of the performance and construction of able heterosexuality. 

Emma's current projects include: 

• Autistic Spaces of Welfare - developing community involvement to understand and improve autistic people's experiences of welfare and housing.
• Trauma-informed pedagogy and research, framing trauma as a social justice and EDI issue.
• Disability and employment in Wales - improving employers' capacity to employ disabled people
• Exploring notions of “a good life” through the lens of queer-crip futurity, using with creative methods in the form of an asynchronous quilting circle. 
• Zombie Problems/Bringing the Body into Policy - exploring resistance to BMI-based measurements of health
• Explorations of crip time, the crip killjoy, and development of queer-crip theory.

Emma is also a member of The Worlds We Want research hub. 

To express interest in persuing PhD research with Emma, please contact her.