Reflexivity

A research practice in which scholars continuously examine how their own identities, positions, assumptions, disciplinary training, and power relationships shape the research they conduct — the questions they ask, the methods they choose, the participants they recruit, and the conclusions they draw. In accessibility research, reflexivity is especially important because the majority of researchers are non-disabled and risk projecting ableist assumptions onto disabled participants. Reflexive practice includes writing positionality statements, sharing interpretive authority with disabled co-authors, seeking community review of findings, and treating disability as a relational phenomenon rather than an individual deficit.