Nishida, Akemi

Akemi Nishida uses research, education, and activism to investigate the ways in which ableism are exercised in relation to racism, cis-heteropatriarchy, xenophobia, and other forms of social injustices. She also uses such methods to work toward cross-community solidarity for the liberation and celebration of community power. In her research and teaching, Nishida brings together disability studies, and critical race and feminist theories with affect theory. In Just Care: Messy Entanglements of Disability, Dependency, and Desire (Temple University Press, 2022), she examines public health care programs as well as grassroots interdependent care collectives and bed-space activism. The book traces the ways in which care is used as a tool for social oppression structurally under the neoliberal political economy as much as marginalized communities engage in care to activate and sustain their social change work. Prior to joining the Disability & Human Development and Women’s & Gender Studies departments at the University of Illinois at Chicago as an assistant professor, Nishida earned her Ph.D. in critical social psychology from the City University of New York. Her research has been funded by the American Association of University Women, the Linda Powell Pruitt Dissertation Scholarship, and the University of Illinois at Chicago Institute of Research on Race and Public Policy. Her work has been published in Subjectivity, Multicultural Perspectives, Disability Studies Quarterly, and Occupy! n+1. Her commitment for disability and other social justices continues outside of academia as she contributes to multiple grassroots organizations in Chicago and nationally.