Approaches to Making Change with Women and Girls with Disabilities

This open access book examines how women and girls with disabilities across Haiti, South Africa, Vietnam, Canada, Uganda, and contexts of gender based violence more broadly, navigate systemic exclusion while driving meaningful social change. Drawing on a major transnational research partnership, the collection identifies three interconnected approaches that women with disabilities themselves have identified as essential for advancing rights and justice: building and sustaining leadership, leveraging transnational networks and strategic litigation, and creating spaces for co producing and sharing knowledge. Through country case studies and comparative analysis, the chapters illuminate how women and girls with disabilities confront intersecting forms of discrimination, mobilise collective action, and reshape local, national, and global policy landscapes. The volume highlights both shared experiences and context specific challenges across regions with different income levels, human development rankings, and histories of conflict and peacebuilding. Each chapter is grounded in research conducted with women and girls with disabilities, offering insight into how they exercise agency, build movements, and transform the conditions of their lives.Edited by leading scholars in disability, development, and gender studies, this short collection fills a critical gap in scholarship and practice. It provides an essential resource for researchers, students, practitioners, and policymakers in international development studies, women’s and gender studies, disability studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, international relations, and global studies.