ABSTRACT
At a recent seminar on the relationship between medical sociology and disability theory I was struck by the response from some non-disabled and disabled academics to a call from a disabled delegate from an organisation of disabled people for guidelines on how to deal with requests from researchers for information and collaboration on disability-related research. Although the enquirer was clearly concerned about the ease with which researchers can easily misrepresent disability, those who responded used the request as an opportunity to put forward their own positions as independent researchers. They were concerned that in disability research, as in research generally, researchers must be free of all external considerations and controls in order to produce valid and unbiased results.
