The symposium draws on Disability and Queer Studies to challenge boundaries in relation to age(ing). Such standpoint epistemologies do not take their central topic as given but are interested in social and cultural constructions of difference. Notions like compulsory heterosexuality or compulsory able-bodymindedness convey that able-bodymindedness and cis-heterosexuality are assumed until contrary information is shared. These assumptions are harmful as they isolate disabled and queer people and block their access to accommodation. These notions further convey the cultural assumption of a general preference for able and straight bodies, identities, and subjectivities when framed as choice. This prescription not only targets the body but also the mind, it is compulsory to be able-bodied, able-minded, heterosexual, and cisgender.

We argue for affirmative and emancipatory understandings of difference. In this vein, we must reflect on our methodological frameworks and approaches that unsettle the status-quo: heteronormative, able-bodied, able-minded, and a general homogeneity of populations. As activists and scholars have called for a positive, even celebratory revaluation of queerness and disability, we offer a contextualized and situated interrogation of difference as a means to achieve this. For instance, the notion of cripping specifically frames disability as a source of pride due to its potential to subvert norms: it makes toxic sociocultural norms more visible and, therefore, workable. The unachievable, ableist ideals we aspire to – autonomy and independence, or bodily perfection – are detrimental to many disabled and able-bodyminded people. Queering methodologies challenge us to use queer approaches and theorization to inform research design, method, and practice as critical to intersectional and inclusive strategies to mainstream the values of ethical praxis, social justice, and diversity.

Our symposium asks what it would mean to crip and queer (research on) age and ageing. Possible topics could engage with the following questions yet this list is not exhaustive:

1. How are cripping and queering as emancipatory strategies similar and different to each other?

2. How do ageing crips and queers rework their own understandings of difference?

3. How can researchers ask for difference and account for difference in age(ing)?

4. How does queering ageing research practice and methodology implicate the issues surrounding difference?