Liam Livesley

I am a PhD candidate (post-submission, pre-viva) in philosophy at the University of Southampton, UK.

My research is mostly in the philosophy of disability.

L.A.Livesley [at] soton.ac.uk
 PhilPapers |  Southampton

• CV
• More about me

Research

My current research focuses on disability pride: what we should think of it as being; how it should shape our theorising about disability; and how it compares to other pride movements. My working theory is that existing views insufficiently emphasise the political aspect of pride.

My doctoral work defended a radical social constructionist account of disability. I argue that we can – in ameliorative terms – secure important resources for the anti-ableist political project by understanding disability as a kind of subordination in virtue of being believed to have a defective body. It was funded by an AHRC Studentship from the South, West & Wales Doctoral Training Partnership, and supervised by Alex Gregory, Havi Carel & Naomi Thompson.

I'm interested in most aspects of disability, but I also have broader interests across social & political philosophy, including:

▪ Conceptual engineering – particularly on socio-political concepts, and the politics of engineering
▪ Social ontology & social construction
▪ Speech, harm, violence & oppression
▪ The political thought of J. S. Mill

Talks

Justice as a Constraint on Conceptual Engineering
28^th Oxford Philosophy Graduate Conference, University of Oxford | Nov '24
ASPP Annual Conference, Swansea University | Jul '24
BPPA Annual Conference, University of York | Oct '23

Disability as Subordination
MANCEPT Disability & Justice Workshop, University of Manchester | Sep '24
Radical Disability Politics: A Global Dialogue, University of Brighton | Jun '24
Social Ontology 2023, Stockholm University | Aug '23

Making Sense of Disability Pride
Understanding Value XII, University of Sheffield | Jul '24
LSE Graduate Conference in Political Theory, LSE | May '24

Disability, Social Construction, and the Disappearing Body
CAPPE Interventions in Disability Politics Seminar, University of Brighton | Feb '24

Reasonable Adjustment, COVID-19, and Crises in Disability Justice
Nordic Network on Disability Research 16^th Research Conference, Reykjavík | May '23