While 68% of South Asia’s population uses the internet, as per the World Bank’s statistics, nuanced data for people with disabilities remains limited. Research by the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) in low and middle-income countries shows a significant disparity in mobile phone ownership; however, a lack of disability-disaggregated data hinders targeted insights into the use of assistive technologies. The ‘Accessibility, Language and Tech for the People’ (ALT), a research-in-action initiative at Whose Knowledge?, aims to increase engagement and improve online experience for persons with visual impairments, both as users and producers of digital knowledge. The study comprised researchers and participants with visual impairments, spanning India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Demographically, the group included Hindi and Bangla speakers from India, Bangla speakers in Bangladesh and Urdu speakers in Pakistan. As a feminist disabled researcher, I used in-depth conversations to explore both their personal research journeys and broader lived experiences. Research on disability often overlooks disabled people as active participants and leaders, raising concerns about not only the ways in which disability is studied, but also the lens used to analyse the on-ground realities of people with disabilities. As a project that prioritised active co-creation by persons with disabilities, ALT provided us with valuable insights into the intersection of disability and technology.Improved methodological rigourVashkar Bhattacharjee, a Bangladeshi electronic and information accessibility expert, highlighted how researchers with disabilities bring a “lifetime of experience” to their projects and methodology designs. He noted, “Researchers with disabilities know their community’s needs better than others [non-disabled people], ask the right questions and are really good at explaining disability-related issues.”Nirmita Narasimhan, an Indian accessible technology policy researcher and advocacy expert, agreed with this view, “My biggest advantage is my real-life experience of using assistive technology communication, apps, digital services and websites, and the frustrations with technological failures. This has given me a sense of broader and deeper engagement with the subject at a very personal level.” Being an assistive technology user, she can proactively articulate the typical pain points inherent in systems and include them in the research questionnaire. Nirmita further extrapolated that lived experience enabled researchers to frame more nuanced questions, identifying relevant aspects of the conversation. Feminist research has pointed out the importance of studying, interrogating and highlighting every aspect of the relationship between the ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched.’ Emphasising the central role positionality occupies in research, Khansa Maria, an education researcher from Pakistan working at the juncture of language, equity and social justice, said: “Having a disability influences the questions I study and ask. It impacts my research framing itself, as positionality plays a crucial role in research. We are particularly sensitive to power imbalances.”Ishan Chakraborty, an assistant professor at Jadavpur University’s English department and a language-accessibility activist, approached this question through a different perspective. Having learnt the language of disability justice and crip methodology, he shared that he had been practising them in his research. He discussed how he made it a point to focus on questions that may be influenced by ideologies (like ableism) and broke them down into smaller questions, sometimes even asking leading questions. He said, “There are certain things which need to be unpacked, otherwise I will not get the answer. I often share a small example from my own life as a person with disability to put my respondents at ease and build trust.”Responsibility to the communityResearchers with disabilities also described feeling a sense of responsibility towards the community they belonged to and were researching. Nirmita reflected, “As a member of the visual impairment community, I want to ensure that the research is valuable to other members. They’re not only devoting their time, but also doing the hardest thing by opening themselves to somebody else. We must also ensure that they have consented and involve them only as long as they wish. Their inputs should be shared in the way they want.”Khansa and Vashkar addressed the need for authentic community representation. Khansa said, “We must ensure that participants’ details are anonymised and that their time and narratives are respected, especially deeply emotional experiences.”For Ishan, community responsibility is layered. He talked about the need to enter research without prior assumptions and about how people from the community often bring their own set of expectations. Ishan further stated that researchers must take care to unpack the ideologies they encounter during interviews and to support participants throughout the process by clarifying technical queries. Ethical concernsInterviewed researchers highlighted consent as one of their key ethical concerns and shared how they obtained it.They spoke about how a person with disability may have reservations about talking to them alone, in which case a sighted family member or friend generally accompanies them. Nirmita asserted that, at times, family members cajoled participants to answer, which cannot be considered as consent. “Participants may fear that their safety and identity is being compromised. Their answers to certain questions may compel them to say things they otherwise may not say at home. They should be able to withdraw at any time,” she said. Both Ishan and Khansa articulated the need to view participants’ lives not at sources of extractive data, but as stories to be honoured. Khansa said, “I want to co-create with them and centre their narratives, rather than merely curating qualitative data.” Ishan echoed this view, noting that researchers studying disabilities tend to ask “nosy” questions. “It’s okay to be curious, but not nosy. A researcher should distinguish between genuine curiosity and inquisitiveness from nosiness,” he said. Vashkar called attention to the minimal participation of women with visual impairments in the focus group discussions. He identified the pervasive inequality and demanded the need for the creation of a safe space for women participants. Unpacking existing narrativesMany of us in the disability community fear that research has failed to paint a nuanced, accurate picture of our lives, reducing our experiences to stereotypical narratives. The interviewed researchers shared similar concerns, especially concerning the “us versus them” narrative, where persons with disabilities are pitted against each other. They also talked about inherent issues with the “pity” or “poor them” narrative surrounding persons with disabilities. On the other hand, they added, furthering the “superhuman” narrative had its own pitfalls. Overall, they felt research on persons with disabilities must resist the narrative of lack and the one of tokenism being preferred.Khansa raised concerns about the manner in which research has been shaped from the beginning. She said, “There isn’t enough nuance in how non-disabled people see disabled people. Our opinions, choices and experiences are not the same and this nuance is missing. Any narrative that generalises, putting the impairment in the body rather than the society, remains problematic.”Additionally, Vashkar emphasised the prejudices of abled people who view researchers with disabilities as incapable of conducting research. “We’re always very careful to prove our ability. We study rigorously and try not to make any mistakes because it will cost us,” he said.Khansa and Nirmita both express frustration over disability being discussed in isolation. “By studying disability exclusively, we are siloed into a conversation only about disability and accessibility instead of socio-economic contextualising and interplaying, ” Nirmita said. Khansa felt that the problem lay in the approach and the academic community needs to start thinking about all research from a disability-inclusive perspective. “I do believe there should be nothing without us,” she said, “I want the lives of researchers with disabilities to be seen as messy, raw, empowered and nuanced, just like they are in real life.”These insights and expertise move us closer to meaningful community participation, a layered understanding of disabled people’s lived experiences and a breakdown of stigma. Srinidhi Raghavan is a disabled feminist, researcher, educator and writer who works at the intersections of gender, disability and technology. She served as a Strategic Advisor during the ALT research-in-action process.This is the third in a series of articles on the topic. Read the first and the second in the series.