Beyond boundaries? Disability,DIY and punk pedagogies

Abstract

DIY is often viewed as a core element of punk, an aspect that enabled activism against an assumed authority and power (Guerra, 2018; Martin-Iverson, 2017). It is therefore often lauded as a means of engaging with/utilising punk in a pedagogical sense (Bestley, 2017; Cordova, 2016). It should be capable of working in tandem with education in developing and encouraging the ‘movement against and beyond boundaries’ (hooks, 1994). However, this is not necessarily simple or straightforward to realise through one’s own pedagogical practices, especially when one considers them through an intersectional lens. We argue that punk scholarship on DIY fails to account for its capacity to support ableist ideologies and structures - incorporating it into punk pedagogy in an uncritical manner risks further deepening asymmetrical power relations in regards to disability and the adversity that people with disability experience. We utilise collaborative auto-ethnography to unpack some of the complexities involved in pursuing punk pedagogical practices and unpacking the aforementioned critique of DIY further. We consider how DIY can/could potentially be a powerful, empowering pedagogical tool and consider the ways DIY purports a damaging, ableist narrative, which at times can even aid the neoliberal agenda within higher education. The necessity for punk pedagogies to be underpinned by considerations of intersectional issues, both from the viewpoint of the teacher and the students, is demonstrated through our use of critical disability theory as an analytical tool.

Introduction

DIY is often viewed as a core element of punk, an aspect that enabled activism against an assumed authority and power (Guerra, 2018; Martin-Iverson, 2014). It is therefore often lauded as a means of engaging with/utilising punk in a pedagogical sense (Bestley, 2017; Cordova, 2016). It should be capable of working in tandem with education in developing and encouraging the ‘movement against and beyond boundaries’ (Hooks, 1994). However, this is not necessarily simple or straightforward to realise through one’s own pedagogical practices, especially when one considers them through an intersectional lens. We argue that punk scholarship on DIY fails to account for its capacity to support ableist ideologies and structures - incorporating it into punk pedagogy in an uncritical manner risks further deepening asymmetrical power relations in regards to disability and the adversity that people with disability experience. We utilise collaborative auto-ethnography to unpack some of the complexities involved in pursuing punk pedagogical practices and unpacking the aforementioned critique of DIY further. We consider how DIY can/could potentially be a powerful, empowering pedagogical tool and consider the ways DIY purports a damaging, ableist narrative, which at times can even aid the neoliberal agenda within higher education. The necessity for punk pedagogies to be underpinned by considerations of intersectional issues, both from the viewpoint of the teacher and the students, is demonstrated through our use of critical disability theory as an analytical tool.

DIY and disability

In this article we draw upon our experiences as disabled punk women who, collectively, have spent their entire adult lives working as educators across the secondary, further and higher education systems in the UK. We take (Adams et al., 2015)’s point that “Disability encompasses a broad range of bodily, cognitive, and sensory differences and capacities” but also that “the meanings we attribute to disability are shifting, elusive, and sometimes contradictory” (2015: 5), whilst noting that disability and education need to be understood intersectionally (Artilies, 2013). This is concerned with recognising how the various characteristics of individuals and how they experience the world, especially in relation to power, intersect with one another – race, class, gender, disability and others (Crenshaw, 1991).

Within this article we focus on punk pedagogies as a set of pedagogical principles used to inform teaching and learning. Reflecting on literature concerning punk pedagogies, some key principles can be identified, usually reflecting values understood to be part of punk more generally, such as anti-conformity, anti-authoritarianism, anti-hierarchy, a DIY (do-it-yourself) ethic and passion (Smith et al., 2018; Furness, 2012; Kahn-Egan, 1998; Haenfler, 2012). Punk pedagogies can involve breaking apart normative discourses of traditional education (Torrez, 2012), critical engagement (Kahn-Egan, 1998) and a commitment to social change (Miner and Torrez, 2012).

We focus our attention here on the DIY (do-it-yourself) ethic. We have discussed other ‘punk values’ in relation to disability elsewhere (Stewart and Way, 2023; Stewart, 2019). DIY is well documented as a core punk value (Beer, 2014; Glasper, 2014; Moran, 2010; O’Hara, 1999; Way, 2021); some also refer specifically to punk as ‘DIY punk’ (Griffin, 2012; Moran, 2010). Martin-Iverson states that DIY comprises “collective independence’” (2014: 187) or, in other words, DIY is grounded simultaneously in the values of community and autonomy. Building on this, then, DIY can seen as developing ideas from anarchism concerned with individual responsibility and cooperation in enacting change (O’Hara, 1999).

As noted in our introduction, we are problematising the largely uncritical manner in which DIY, as a core punk value, has been incorporated into punk pedagogy. We are doing this using specific terminology. We understand disability through the social model which holds that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference (Barnes, 2012; Oliver, 2013; Shakespeare, 2006). The social model emerged in 1974 from the work of the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS). As a model or approach to disability it understood disabled people as an oppressed group that had additional barriers to accessing full membership in society. The barriers were not caused by their medical condition(s) but none the less impact upon them. Barriers can be physical, such as buildings not having accessible toilets. Or, they can be caused by people’s attitudes to difference like assuming disabled people cannot do certain things, for example have sex. The social model advocates for understanding disability as being created by society, rather than the problem being the disabled person (as found within the medical model). Related to this we utilise the language proposed by the social model, using terms such as ‘disabled people’ rather than ‘person with disability’. This ensures that the disability is not seen as an appendage, but rather as a consequence of decisions made by an ableist society. Furthermore, we draw upon Margaret Price’s work in relation to language. Currently, it is popular to use the phrase ‘visible and invisible disabilities’ but Price (2015) argues that such language is woefully oversimplified. It fails to account for the physical impact that learning and mental disability can have on the body, either in the form of tics, self-comforting gestures, or as a long term consequence (e.g. skin problems in people who are compelled to over-wash due to OCD). Furthermore, it persists in placing accountability on the person with the disability, rather than on showing the normative structures and practices that render disability as marginalised. Price argues that we should instead use apparent or intermittently apparent as “mental and physical processes not only affect each other but also give rise to each other—that is, because they tend to act as one, even though they are conventionally understood as two—it makes more sense to refer to them together” (2015: 269). We argue that using these terms of apparent and intermittently apparent also places responsibility on able-bodied people to pay attention to how disabled people have to navigate the spaces being afforded to them, including punk spaces and educational spaces.

The DIY problematic

Apparent, inapparent and intermittently apparent differences caused through disability remains “one of the most foundational – and yet one of the least explored – representational tropes of the punk milieu” (Church, 2013: 28). To date, very little has been written on punk and disability (with exceptions being McKay, 2015, 2013; Stewart, 2019; Garland-Thompson, 1997) and to date nothing has been published concerning punk pedagogy and disability (though the authors do have a forthcoming chapter concerning this). DIY within punk functions on and concretises the premise that anyone can do it, anyone can take part, anyone can be a punk. It is supposed to be affirming, empowering even, because it situates itself as an alternative to the gate-keeping inherent in corporate or institutional-led music industries and cultures. Unfortunately, it has become its own form of unconscious gate-keeping, wielded as a means to prevent critique of ableist, racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic or transphobic behaviours and assumptions within the punk scene (Nguyen, 2012; Fiscella, 2012; Sabin, 1999; O’Brien, 1999). Saying anyone can do it, doesn’t make it so. There is, as Richard Phoenix (2020) argues, an inherent and close-minded privilege at the core of DIY. Privilege is being used in this context to mean that advantages are only available to certain members rather than all; those advantages could be, for example, access related. Saying everyone can do it doesn’t help the wheelchair user tying to get onstage to play when the only access is a set of stairs. Although discussing DIY music labels, Dale’s point is nevertheless an important one when he writes:

The problem, in other words, was that whilst anyone can ‘do it yourself’ in theory, some will inevitably have a certain power to create a durable statement which, in practice, not everyone is likely to be able to create; and the spreading of power desired by the DIY ethic of the punk/indie movements was problematic from the words 'go and do it', therefore. (Dale, 2008: 178)

There is a flattening that occurs within the DIY principle, wherein the assumption is that everyone is equal and equally able to gain access. Disabled people, and other historically excluded groupings, are often unable to gain access in various ways and this places burden on the disabled person – they have to met standards and expectations set by able bodied people who have not considered the barriers that may be in place nor the levels of exhaustion that challenging or encountering such barriers as part of your daily experiences creates for the disabled person. The DIY model as it is articulated within punk is predicated upon a stable or fixed notion of the body and identity that is damaging to punk as well as to punk pedagogies. An unaware system of compulsory able-bodiedness is not and should not be the norm, and so this article calls on punk to reconsider its pedagogies through a DIY ethic or approach that imagines bodies and desires that fit beyond that system (McRuer, 2006: 32).

Collaborative auto-ethnography

Autoethnography is a form of qualitative-based research that uses “the experience of the author/researcher for the purposes of extending sociological understanding” (Sparkes, 2013: 21). Collaborative Auto-Ethnography (CAE) entails researchers working together to “collect their autobiographical materials and to analyze and interpret their data collectively to gain a meaningful understanding of sociocultural phenomena reflected in their autobiographical data” (Chang et al., 2012: 23-4). Various types of CAE exist (Chang et al., 2012) but we chose a format which suited our immediate situation of being just two researchers, rather than a group, as well as working within the context of a global pandemic. Rather than ethnographically focusing on our current practice as teachers we were pushed more so to reflect on our past experiences and so the data we drew upon was more personal memory/recollection of past self with our discussions with each other about these recollections generating additional interview data (Chang et al., 2012).

We take Patricia Hill Collins’ (2009) argument that the production of knowledge should be purposeful, concerned with overcoming injustice and creating a better world. This involves critically engaging with “ongoing epistemological debates concerning the power dynamics that underlie what counts as knowledge” (Collins, 2009: 292). Concerning this then, we were also drawn to CAE because of its ability to challenge the academic form of power regarding writing conventions that silence some voices and laud those which “fit” (Reed-Danahay, 1997: 9). Furthermore, auto-ethnography and CAE can be important tools for engaged pedagogy (Hooks, 1994) - CAE can involve self-actualisation which Hooks (1994) argues is vital for approaching teaching in a way that is empowering for learners and teachers.

Our method of CAE was as follows. We each wrote a ‘story’ in response to a set of questions we had collaboratively designed concerning DIY in relation to punk, pedagogical practice and/or disability. These stories were then shared with each other by email for the other to read and reflect upon. Next we created some ‘thinking prompts’ for the other in relation to their story (which took the form of questions) and these become the basis of our subsequent discussion. This discussion was carried out via video-calling and the purpose of this was to work in tandem to critique and question the meanings we gave to our stories (Chang et al., 2012). After these discussions we would then individually reflect further on the initial story before working together to draw out key themes for analysis through some loose open coding of the data and identification of themes. This single story and process was a part of a larger CAE between the two authors concerning punk pedagogies and disability.

CAE is not without its weaknesses or challenges. These might concern issues around vulnerability and trustworthiness, logistical challenges, multi-vocality, or ethics and confidentiality (Chang et al., 2012). We were aware that our existing relationship (as colleagues and also as friends) led to high levels of honesty and trustworthiness of each other but how this would not have necessarily been replicated with others. It was also important for us to reflect on what we made ‘public’ in terms of our writing - being comfortable sharing something between each other might not necessitate the same level of comfort regarding sharing beyond the two of us. CAE offered a practical and efficient way of doing research for us given our circumstances at the time, for example. Our collective approach meant a challenging of the traditional research-participant hierarchy, something important to us both as feminist researchers. We approached CAE as a form of oral history collection and as such saw this as providing an accessible and disability-friendly route into gathering and sharing experiences which could also be “both personally empowering and collectively transformative” (Zahir Ali cited in Adams, 2020).

Related to this potential for CAE to be personally empowering, when both of us watched back our recorded discussion of our stories, we did reflect on how this one on DIY differed from previous ones we had done. We both noted the ways this discussion did not feel as ‘lively’ as the others, for example, and a sense of fatigue and drain was evident in our demeanours and physical appearance. Had this discussion been face to face there might have been greater opportunities for feeding off each other’s energy. We highlight this as thinking through the emotional toll of such work has not been considered in existing literature on punk pedagogies (detailed further in Stewart and Way, 2023) and is also something that needs considering further.

Discussion

Our CAE stories and analysis focused largely on DIY and punk in the context of music. This was a natural element of the stories we choose to share with one another, it was not intentional. As we continued with the further analysis after the initial video recording, we realised that it helped us to shed light on issues that arise when DIY is applied to pedagogy. For the remainder of this article we focus on three particular ‘critical moments’ in our stories and subsequent discussions, using these to unpack and think more about some of the issues involved in ‘DIY’ and how we might think more critically about how we apply DIY as a part of punk pedagogies. It is important to stress that although we are focusing on traditional education as part of our analysis, we both strongly begin from a position that asserts that punk, and various elements of it are themselves forms of pedagogy.

Moment 1 – ‘keeping it real, not selling out’

We start our series of moments, then, with one related to experiences ‘outside’ of a formalised educational context. The justification for doing so is to highlight how punk itself can be pedagogical/educative (Cordova 2016) as what we learn from punk then shapes our experiences and/or approaches pedagogically ‘inside’ (e.g. within the classroom). This learning can concern how different values/principles are conceptualised (for example, what DIY is). The first critical moment we draw upon, then, concerns Laura reflecting upon her experiences of playing in a band:

We felt we were DIY because we organised our own gigs/tours, made our own posters, this whole idea of things being done 'in house' as much as possible and not being out to make a profit for it. We didn't expect (want?) to get paid for gigs for example and were more than happy if petrol was covered, bonus if we were fed! During these days I really got this sense of DIY as being bound up in the idea of 'keeping it real'. If you weren't DIY you basically had sold out as a band and become corporate, profit-driven, not authentic.

Often punk DIY is conceptualised in the context of music, indeed our own DIY stories were predominantly framed in this way. O’Hara (1999) in explaining DIY as part of the philosophy of punk, for example, concentrates exclusively on how this value plays out in terms of punk bands and gigs. Here DIY might be understood as arising as a necessity for punk bands in terms of creating their music, and spaces for music, in the absence of being catered for elsewhere. It too might be seen as a way of upholding this historical notion of punk sticking two fingers up to the rest of society, the ethos that ‘anyone could do it’. Often an antithesis of this DIY approach to (live) music and being a band is the idea of ‘selling out’ (Pearson, 2018; Dunn, 2012) which Laura speaks to in the above quote. DIY is both structural and ideological (Verbuč, 2016:14) and this extract reveals both the structure in regards to the actions the band took to perform as DIY and the ideological conception that underpinned those ideas, which was that DIY was understood by the author and her bandmates as a marker of being authentically punk.

There is an abundance of theoretical and empirical work concerning ‘authenticity’ in the context of punk. What is relevant to this article is an approach to authenticity which sees this as something which is fluid and socially constructed (Williams, 2006). Authenticity is no more than “a claim made by or for someone, thing or performance and either accepted or rejected by relevant others” (Peterson, 2005: 1086 in Williams, 2006). The way such construction and claim-making takes place within systems of hierarchy and inequality must be considered in our analyses. Some groups may, therefore, enjoy less challenge in constructing authenticity, and/or narratives concerning authenticity might privilege particular social groups. Punk, for example, can uphold white privilege, as well as heteronormativity (King, 2012; Schilt, 2006; Nguyen, 2012), meaning particular individuals always have to ‘fight’ for punk authenticity (King, 2012). If we take the dominant discourse in punk to be ‘whitestraightboy hegemony’ (Hanson, 1994) then it is clear to see who holds greater power and privilege.

Commitment to values pertaining to punk can be a marker of authenticity and, as highlighted above, this can include constructing one’s self as committed to the principle of ‘DIY’. In the subsequent discussion of Laura’s recollections of the band she played in, Laura, prompted by Francis, had to confront however how this construction of DIY as doing certain thing so as to not be seen as ‘selling out’ is formed upon problematic ableist ideals. Francis helped Laura unpack this by drawing upon the example of the Finnish punk band, Pertti Kurikan Nimiäivät, which comprises four disabled men with learning disabilities including Down’s syndrome and autism. Such an example serves to highlight that not everyone has equal capacity or opportunity to engage in markers of DIY in a musical context e.g. taking responsibility for themselves as musicians and band members, organising their own gigs and so forth. Referring back to authenticity, this may then limit the construction of authentic punk selves for particular individuals if such a notion of DIY is part of said construction.

As we highlighted above, DIY is both structural and ideological (Verbuc, 2016:14) and we have noted the ideological conception underpinning Laura’s band’s understanding of DIY as being authentically punk. These ideas did not arrive apriori, they are embedded within the lifeblood of punk. Yet they remain nothing more than an imaginary within our imaginary community. Whilst there can certainly be a desire to counter the dominance of major labels through symbolic resistance (Strachan, 2007) and cooperation networks (Lindenberg, 1998), the reality is often far from the ideal or imagined reality. Speaking specifically of bands The Buzzcocks and Scritti Politti, Bestley argues:

[T]he extent of any ‘handmade’ processes employed were limited to folding, assembling and stapling ready-printed covers, and rubber stamping labels, with all major manufacturing elements (recording, cutting, mastering, pressing, printing etc) commissioned from professional service providers. (2017: open edition)

Bestley is describing the mythmaking of DIY in regard to punk, and noting that the reality often entails the necessity to draw upon professionals or even large corporate funds. Consequently, DIY for Bestley often becomes something only achievable to a select few rather than the use of it to open capacities.

There is an element that is seldom considered in such critical analysis of DIY and its outworkings, which is the way in which DIY is a form of gate-keeping in relation to marginalised and historically excluded people as noted above in the discussion around authenticity. In regards to disability, that gate-keeping can manifest in, for example, not considering physical access to venues, stage space for wheelchair users, and the impact of long tours on those who need regular therapy or drug regimes through to denial of capacity of those with disabilities. Laura had spoken at length about the stock her band put in doing everything themselves, but when Francis asked her who that excluded she noted how whilst she had perhaps reflected on this in terms of being gendered, she had only really reflected on this as also perpetuating ableism as a result of Francis’ questioning e.g. Laura had not considered how DIY can deny opportunities to disabled artists. This self-reflection is indicative of how being within punk is itself a form of pedagogy, that we are educated or disciplined (Foucault, 1975) into thinking and acting in certain ways. Reflecting on them enables us to then reflect upon and shape our pedagogical approaches within the classroom. Ultimately what Laura is considering is the way in which the mythmaking centrality of DIY within punk reinforces existing notions of power. As Sharp and Threadgold note:

Punk scenes have the general illusio of being resistant to dominant norms and practices, which is attractive to individuals who feel like outsiders. Yet through symbolic violence, systematic oppression can be perpetrated. (2020: 606)

We see this clearly in the punk scholarship on gender (Aguilera, 2020; Nurcahyani and Audina, 2019; Stewart, 2016, 2019; Lohman, 2013), sexuality (Moritzan, 2020; Sharp, 2019; Nyong’o, 2008) and race (Woods, 2020; Mahmoud, 2012; Ensminger, 2010) but we have yet to see it in relation to disability. Grasping the nettle on this one, taking seriously the lives and experiences of disabled punks and the reality of ableism within punk, we need to critically engage with DIY as a core concept and practice. Failure to do so, refusal to do so, and its resounding silence does not prevent that ableism from existing it just drives it further into the very essence of punk. As Audre Lorde notes, “your silence will not protect you” (Lorde, 2017).

Moment 2 – ‘initiative, education in our own hands’

The second critical moment concerns Francis speaking on her earliest experience of consciously and intentionally taking a DIY approach to something – this was in relation to a time when she was unable to attend school due to a series of surgeries with lengthy recovery times. Francis remembers at the time hearing the band Rancid’s song ‘Salvation’ and thinking:

It hit me listening to it that what was being sung about was DIY, a way to survive that is based on doing what you need to whilst not having to capitulate to those who thought they were your better just because they held money or power. I realised that I could do the same, I had the same choice in front of me. I could accept the shitty behaviour of those who had written me off simply because they had the power to or I could teach myself and see what happened. I reasoned with myself that if I was really going to call myself a punk and embrace the ethical side of it that I loved, then I had to do this DIY education to prove to myself that I was a punk.

This resulted in Francis understanding that she needed to take the initiative and get hold of past papers given that her teachers were not going to help, electing to contact the exam board and just ask for them. She worked out that there were patterns to questions and based her learning around that. This was pre-internet and so learning largely consisted of going to the local library to get books and working at home on them on her own. DIY is commonly understood as a reaction to or against massive modes of production (Kuznetsov and Paulos, 2010) but it is a multi-layered, complex beast that is worth nuancing. A part of being able to do something for oneself relies upon understanding one’s needs and the process one must go through to get them met. Within education this is often referred to or understood as taking initiative, something illustrated by Francis in describing the approach she took, and undeniably this too is a form of DIY learning. But such an analysis is too simplistic to be left at that. Such an analysis would fail to note the assumptions that lie at the heart of our common conception of initiative in relation to self-motivation and capacity that obscure barriers for disabled students and learners. Furthermore, it fails to acknowledge the nature of the learning and markers of success for that learning, which again raises further barriers in relation to disability.

In Disability as a Social Construct, Claire Liachowitz (1988) contends that disability is not merely a result of a limitation but that it can be imposed by society through devaluation and segregation grounded in the power structures inherent within a society at any given time. In regard to initiative and taking their education into their own hands, disabled students often have to contend with assumptions that they are unable to do so successfully because of their ‘disability’ or capacity. Such an assumption often derives from a failure to see that the motivation is there, but the student or learner is being asked to contend with so many other things (lack of access in the built environment, having to perform emotional labour for able bodied people, policing their responses to others to name just a few) that energy reserves are just depleted and thus unavailable for taking initiative. In addition, devaluation of a disabled student’s motivations or even markers of success can be a frequent barrier seldom considered. Whilst able-bodied students are allowed to be interested for knowledge sake, or for a cost benefit such as a required exam result to access employment or higher education, disabled students are often corralled into a narrative of trying to overcome ‘their difficulties’ or circumstances.

In talking through her story with Laura, there is a clear sense of Francis not being motivated by ‘overcoming her disabilities’ or struggling against the odds in some way. It was instead a pragmatic decision motivated by external forces, not least of which were punk. Francis noted of her motivation and initiative:

I was very aware that the school was not going to help me, that they were not invested in me. I wasn’t worth it to them, I was not going to succeed at anything, I was factory fodder to them at best…I was, in some regards, inspired by having seen other punks value knowledge and hearing them talk about the importance or power of knowledge. What really struck me was how they got knowledge because it wasn’t from schools and teachers for the most part. That was my experience and understanding of DIY punk, DIY education.

DIY is seen as a lynchpin of punk and punk pedagogies. Laing argues that punk IS the attitude that refuses “to rely on the institutions of the established music industry” (Laing, 2015: 24) As argued in our first moment discussion, that refusal to rely upon them becomes a marker of authenticity within punk circles and identities, but it also becomes a problematic marker because it does not interrogate the very real questions of capacity and privilege that enable that refusal. When we move outside of the music industry, it raises additional questions, especially in relation to established educational institutions and processes. Francis could have easily taken a view of, having been let down by the traditional educational establishment, that being authentically punk meant putting two fingers up at them and just walking away, snubbing what those institutions considered important. Yet she did something else - in understanding that knowledge mattered she took the view that she could take her learning into her own hands by continuing to work with aspects of the established educational industry. There was no other way for her to get hold of the material she needed (previous papers) without relying on that established industry. Likewise she could not veer from the material once received; she had to work with it and within it, she had to rely on that which was established because it had the power to grant her what she needed and wanted. So, does that make her a less authentic punk? Are all punk scholars with PhDs less authentically punk? Answering these question involves considering why DIY is so important to punk and what problems it creates for some punks, especially in relation to disability and other markers of exclusion.

Moran (2010) argues that it is the presence of DIY that has enabled punk to succeed beyond its initial burst in the late 1970s. He argues that the development and use of DIY music creation, music production, labels, press, touring and spaces creates a social network that enables the successful transmission of music and thus the ideologies found within that music, and the wider community of punk (2010: 58). The result being that DIY cannot be detangled from political protest (Moore and Michael, 2009), multisite transnationalism (O’Connor, 2002) and a way of inhabiting the world (Dunn, 2016). Within punk DIY is largely centred round the music of the subculture. Music is a coded meeting place for human beings; enabling connection, commonality and commitment. Combining punk music and DIY results in a coded meeting place that can connect shared political views or actions with potentially global reach that shapes who we are and how we live in the world. That’s the rub though - the shared political views and actions are assumed to be in common and, more so, assumed to be static. Thus, there are feelings of betrayal, hurt and shock when we hear punks express views that are antithetical to our own. Punk is no less an imagined community than a nation or a corporation is, making it a “cultural artefact of a particular kind” (Anderson, 1997: 4). DIY functions as a key plank of the punk imagined community, often assumed to mean or represent a specific form of ‘authentic punkness’, as well as an important means of challenging power or power holding institutions and potentially wresting change. This raises the possibility of finding the same role for DIY within education.

We highlighted earlier how thinking through DIY in a punk musical context can be illuminative in how we then think through such a value in terms of pedagogical practice. But we do want to take a moment here now to highlight the care needed in doing so. Earlier in this article we conceptualised DIY, as O’Hara (1999) does, as involving individual responsibility and cooperation in enacting change. We see this emphasis on ‘individual responsibility’ too in neoliberalism and it’s important to unpick this overlap further, particularly given the argument that education in the UK is increasingly underpinned by such neoliberal values. Whilst individual responsibility in DIY is coupled with cooperation, we might see neoliberal individual responsibility as partnered instead with a ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality. Yet both suffer this same issue we have raised above concerning who is able, or dare say allowed, to enact taking responsibility for themselves. And this is something that has not been fully considered in academic discussions concerning punk pedagogies and DIY to date. Any punk pedagogies engaging in DIY must consider these issues, as well as taking care that efforts are not co-opted by the neoliberal agenda. We take this up in the final section through a focus on DIY in the punk classroom.

Moment 3 – ‘DIY in the punk classroom’

DIY, as established above, is a fundamental of punk. Francis recounted in her story a time in which she had attended a gig [show] with a band in which traffic had caused them to be late to a venue they were unfamiliar with. Upon arrival, the band - all able-bodied men - grabbed their instruments and ran to set up for playing, leaving her with all of the band’s merchandise to bring in and set up. The venue was inaccessible to her; very steep stairs, no lift and no alternative route. Francis recalled how both sides reacted badly to her inability to fulfil her role, yelling at each other and blaming the other. The men were upset that she did not fulfil her obligations or even come up and get one of them to help her. Francis was upset that the men would not see how unrealistic they were being in their expectations of her and especially that they refused to see that she could not come up the stairs and get one of them to help her get up the stairs she was unable to get up in the first place. In recounting this, Francis noted how both sides drew upon DIY as a marker of their ‘punkness.’ She wrote:

‘James’ and I got into a massive row about it as I hadn’t “played my part” and the more I raged that he was being a selfish, unreasonable dick, the more he raged that “we can’t claim to be fucking DIY if we aren’t doing everything ourselves, we can’t be expecting people to do stuff for us” and on and on. We eventually got back in the van and headed back, with everyone still furious and shouting at each other. I felt I was hitting my head against a brick wall in that they couldn’t see how exclusive and excluding their precious, privileged version of DIY actually was. They felt I was being a drama queen and a sell out by not pulling my weight and showing the audience the ‘values of DIY’.

In sharing this with Laura and reflecting on it through the questions she asked, Francis was compelled to consider how she was led to believe that DIY created inclusivity. To answer that, she drew on two important aspects that she had experienced. The first being the language in magazines like Kerrang!, and in local fanzines at the time that both assumed and reinforced DIY as inclusive, empowering, necessary and equitably present. The second was the way in which women she admired - such as Patsy Preston (Toxic Waste), Kate Reddy (108), Kim Shattuck (The Muffs) and female bands like The Donnas and Spitboy - seemed to be able to express who they were and how they experienced the world which led her to believe at the time that the same would be true of other oppressions and marginalised categories. She only later came to realise what a battle they had on their hands and how often they had to carefully navigate the scenes and choose their battles. In reality the purported inclusivity of DIY punk was something tightly held and meted out by those still privileged within wider society. Consequently, the messages did not live up to the reality and each knock back, each instance of exclusion, led to deep disappointment and an inverse guilt for failing to be ‘authentically punk’. This, of course, crept into the classroom for both authors in how they situated themselves, how they performed as educators and how they presented punk pedagogically. Additional tools had to be drawn upon by both authors as they reflected on their practices, a significant one being critical disability theory.

Critical disability theory (CDT) is a framework for the analysis of disability which centres disability and challenges the ableist assumptions which shape society. CDT’s central theme is that disability is a social construct, not the inevitable result of impairment. Disability is a complex inter-relationship between impairment, an individual’s response to that impairment and the physical, institutional and attitudinal (together, the ‘social’) environment. The social disadvantage experienced by disabled people is the result of the failure of the social environment to respond adequately to the diversity presented by disability (Schalk, 2013, 2017). This makes CDT a powerful political tool because it acts and insists upon the rights and interests of disabled people from a starting point that our lives have inherent value.

We understand disability as a direct expression of power, in the sense that it exposes and invokes hierarchies of ‘normality’, ‘acceptability and ‘capability’. Consequently, we argue that power and its effect on human life cannot be understood without treating disability politically and socially. For punk scholars and punk educators that has to include a critical examination and reflexiveness in relation to DIY in the punk classroom. We argue this because we understand that punk and punk pedagogies have a potential role to play within social justice through their capacity to enable the development of a critical pedagogy (Stewart and Way, 2023) that represents a “practice of freedom” (Hooks, 1994: 21) aimed at the “transformation and the abolishment of marginalisation and oppression” (Gabel, 2002: 185).

Above, in the excerpt of self learning and initiative, a key part was left out of the summation of events. This key part being that Francis had to work from home not just because of surgeries and recovery time but because the school would not accommodate her access needs at the time. Their refusal to allow her to leave class early to avoid crowded corridors or move rooms to avoid stairs is a good example of how “normative educational contexts” (Goodley, 2007: 318) are often designed by and for able-bodied persons with little capacity for flexibility. In this instance it was easier to label the disabled student a danger to herself and others, rather than make small accommodations and educate other students about the importance of being aware and considerate of others whilst valuing difference. This is an all too common occurrence within educational establishments at the time and, indeed, within punk spaces even today.

As punks we have to contend with the neoliberal agenda within higher education, and we critique it in multiple ways through the tools of our discipline, modelling how punk has given us the tools and capacities to do so in specific ways. A key aspect of neoliberalism is the mantra of the ‘student as customer’ or consumer model which began in England in 1998 with the introduction of fees for higher education students. This has been wielded with significant power by both disgruntled students and opportunistic government ministers in relation to the online learning that had to take place due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Within this model students are understood or positioned as purchasing a product (degree) by passively (or not) consuming the required knowledge and demonstrating their success in doing so through assessment; a very transactional model of education that succeeds in defanging education of its social justice purpose and its critical role in holding power to account.

DIY in punk urges us in a different direction, or perhaps even as a means of push back, by advocating for a ‘student as producer’ model. Mike Neary argues that the student as producer model “is about the connection between research and teaching and collaboration and cooperation between teachers and students” (Neary, 2016: 89). Such a model is based on principles such as valuing inquisitiveness, sparking creativity, engaging with different perspectives and experiences, and finding the emancipation in realising that your own ideas matter (Kafra, 2018: 110). As outlined above, Francis was inspired as a teenager by older punks finding their own sources of information and creating their own concepts of what knowledge was and what mattered about knowledge. What she witnessed lead her to, unwittingly, engage in a student as producer approach to her own education.

In talking to each other about their own practices and in relation to disability, Francis and Laura both expressed a strong desire to co-create syllabi with students, with each seeing it as an important tool in the student as producer model that sat better with our DIY punk ethic. We conversed over whether it would refute the idea of consumption and nature of ‘buying in’ to a course prescribed to them. Francis was curious as to what impact it would have in terms of opening possibilities for a wider range of voices and experiences to be considered as ‘knowledgeable’ and worth paying attention to. Laura was really interested in whether it would help lower students’ stress and anxiety, which would be conducive to a more inclusive and exploratory based classroom and pedagogy. Our conversation then turned to the fact that neither of us had been allowed to do this so far in our careers, which raised interesting questions for us. Who gets allowed to do this? Who can do this? What gate-keeping, privilege etc. is involved?

Whilst this chapter cannot offer answers, because they are so context specific for each reader, they are worth raising and asking. Not least because they sparked a further interest in Francis who then did research into the construction of co-created syllabi and found that the means by which they are produced is ableist, and often the activities agreed upon are based on ableist norms (subject dependent – she was focused on sociology). For example, in almost every guide to creating the syllabi she found that the first activity was to stand and collaborate for 20 min. Not everyone can stand for 20 min, and some who can have to do so in pain. Whilst that was often acknowledged, the solution was for disabled people to sit, thus immediately forcing them to be marked as different, to sit below (lesser than) everyone else and not be able to fully join in. Some activities found were equally problematic, ranging from writing assignments in which one imagines being a disabled person for a day, to behaving as a disabled person on campus (or elsewhere) to record the reactions and interactions. Those who had been the staff members responsible for these had talked at length about how excited the students were to try these out, and how creative they were as activities that would build empathy. There was no consideration that they are predicated upon cos-play of disability in which one does not have to face the very real and draining reality of that as your everyday existence - disabled people don’t get to stop being disabled when they leave a classroom, submit an assignment or simply go home. Furthermore, it reinforces the notion that disability is not only limited to physical (noticeable) impairments, but that of the medical model in which the problem is the disabled person rather than social structures and attitudes being the disabling force.

Conclusion

Unpacking the conceptualisation of DIY in the context of punk music helps shed light on how this ethos can in turn be brought into (punk) pedagogical practice. This article has served to initiate important conversations that need to be had about the problematic way DIY has been conceptualised and what lessons we can learn from this in developing this ethos into pedagogies. In particular the authors have highlighted the way DIY can uphold and perpetuate particular privileges within punk, especially concerning the way abled bodies are constructed as normative. Moving forward, we offer some key takeaway points for critically reflecting more fully on scholarship concerning DIY and punk pedagogies, for example, the importance of taking an intersectional approach in thinking through what DIY is and how such a value might then be acted upon in pedagogical practice in ways which do not perpetuate ableism (as well as classism, sexism, racism and homophobia). The extent to which individuals can exert their autonomy in response to calls to ‘do it yourself’ needs to be unpacked and this is especially important within education systems which are increasingly neoliberal as well as increasingly speaking to the notion of ‘student as producer’.