Let's Talk Disability - The Challenges of being a deaf academic
Download MP3eaturing Laura McLeod & Professor Claire Alexander | Hosted by Professor Jackie Carter
In this powerful and thought‑provoking episode of Let’s Talk Disability, Professor Jackie Carter is joined by Senior Lecturer in Politics, Laura McLeod, and Head of the School of Social Sciences, Professor Claire Alexander, for a rich and honest conversation about disability, identity, research culture, and the invisible labour disabled academics must navigate.
Laura shares her experience of being born with a profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss—diagnosed late, misunderstood early, and continually shaped by a world designed for people who can hear. She offers striking insight into the everyday work of lip reading, the cognitive exhaustion it creates, and the emotional and logistical burden of arranging access support, from speech‑to‑text transcribers to Access to Work processes. Her reflections illuminate both the beauty and the cost of navigating academia as a deaf scholar.
Claire listens deeply and responds as a leader, reflecting on the realities Laura describes, the blind spots in academic culture, and the need for more informed, compassionate and practical support for disabled colleagues. Her willingness to interrogate assumptions—about access, representation, identity and inclusion—gives this conversation a rare blend of honesty and humility.
Together they explore powerful themes, including:
- the difference between hearing loss and navigating a hearing‑oriented world
- the emotional labour of “fitting in” and the pressures to stay silent
- the burden of representation and the complexity of identity categories
- the invisible cost of organising support as a disabled academic
- the gaps between institutional policy and day‑to‑day experience
- how research time—not teaching—often pays the price of inaccessibility
- the need for leadership training for managers, not just disabled staff
- why sharing experiences can reveal structural patterns hidden in plain sight
This episode is also a call to action: Laura and Claire reflect on the need to gather, understand and act upon the collective experiences of disabled staff in Social Sciences, to create better systems, not just individual adjustments. Their commitments at the end of the episode are practical, grounded and full of purpose.
This is an insightful, moving and deeply human conversation about what it really takes to thrive as a disabled academic—and what universities must do if they are serious about equity, inclusion and genuine support.
A must‑listen for anyone in higher education, leadership, EDI work, or who wants to understand the reality behind the statistics.
A must‑listen for anyone in higher education, leadership, EDI work, or who wants to understand the reality behind the statistics.
Send us your questions or comments to equalityanddiversity@manchester.ac.uk with the subject 'LTD' or connect with Jackie on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjackiecarter
Listen, learn, and help drive real change—because disability inclusion benefits everyone.
Creators and Guests
Host
Professor Jackie Carter
Academic EDI Lead for Disability, member of the Shaw Trust Power 100 for 2023. Author of Work Placements, Internships & Applied Social Research. Prof of Statistical Literacy. FaCSS, NTF. 1-in-20 Women in Data. Late Bloomer. @GM4Women
Guest
Laura McLeod
Laura is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Manchester. She works broadly in the areas of gender, feminism, security and peacebuilding in post-conflict contexts. Much of her focus has been on the United Nations Security Council's Women, Peace and Security agenda, activities around it and its implementation within the United Nations and former Yugoslavia, in particular Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Guest
Professor Claire Alexander
Claire is the Head of the School of Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at The University of Manchester. She has researched and published on race, ethnicity, youth and migration in the UK for over thirty years. She is a member of the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE). Claire was Editor of Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power between 2011 and 2018. She is on the editorial board of Ethnic and Racial Studies and Whiteness and Education. Claire is a Trustee of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and Active Communities Network. She is a former Vice-Chair of the Stuart Hall Foundation and the Runnymede Trust.
