Maria Gómez-Carrillo de castro
ESR Project Title: Voices in Research: Participatory and Emancipatory Methods
Email: mariagomez-carrillo@edu.ulisboa.pt
Biography
María graduated in Law and Political Sciences at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain in 2012. She worked for various years at a local organisation for children and adults with autism (Asociación Pauta) and as a volunteer in different organisations for people with disabilities. After working at various international law firms, María decided to become a freelance in Madrid. She worked with Plena Inclusion (Inclusion Spain) on a handbook for local police on disability rights, held various training sessions for police officers on disability rights and advocated for the creation of a support figure during detention, similar to the appropriate adult system in UK. She developed an online training course on victims with disabilities for the National Police. As a lawyer, she has recently taken up legal capacity cases and revision of “dependency” payments.
María and her co-researchers with intellectual disabilities were invited to write a chapter about their working experience by the Inclusive Research Group from University of Girona. This group celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and decided to put together an edited collection of participatory research experiences. The chapter is in Spanish and can be found under this link: https://dugi-doc.udg.edu/bitstream/handle/10256/21054/InvestigacionInclusiva.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y
She is also part of a project to enable people with learning disabilities to represent themselves within their organisations and delivers training on rights to people with disabilities. She has recently been part of an ongoing programme to train persons with disabilities on voting rights and how to vote, in response to the recent legal amendment recognising voting rights to all persons, including persons with intellectual disabilities.
Research
Research Interests
Intellectual Disability, Autism, Criminal Law, Human Rights Law, Equality, Disability Advocacy, Research Methodologies, Participatory Research, Inclusive Research, Critical Disability Studies, Access to Justice, Legal Capacity, Supported Decision-Making, Socio-legal Research, Public Law, Policy Making.
Research Projects
Maria worked as a Research Associate at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy on the project of Deprivation of Liberty. The project was done in collaboration with the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of People with Disabilities. It focused on discriminatory practices in deprivation of liberty against people with disabilities across the world, such as involuntary admission, institutionalisation and diversion from the criminal justice system. She was also part of the research team on the project “Making rights real for those in prison”.
PhD Research Topic: Maria is researching participatory research methodologies with persons with disabilities, with a special focus on participation during legislative processes, using case studies from Spain, Portugal and Germany. Part of her PhD will be to co-research with persons with intellectual disabilities a topic of their choice in Spain and in Portugal.
Other Research Projects: She is supporting the Observatório da Deficiência e Direitos Humanos at the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas, University of Lisbon in developing a Southern European and Mediterranean Network of Disability and Research. She is part of two access to justice initiatives, a national one in Spain and an international Hub.
Research Publications
Journal Articles
- Maria Gómez-Carrillo de Castro and Monica Pinilla Rocancio, Data and Human Rights for Persons with Disabilities: The case of deprivation of liberty. The International Journal of Human Rights (forthcoming)
- María Gómez-Carrillo de Castro and others, Legislative proposal on support during detention and trial (forthcoming)
Reports and Handbooks
Report on deprivation of liberty and good practices.
Handbook on police and persons with disabilities.
Teaching Areas
Guest lecture at National University of Galway on Deprivation of liberty of persons with disabilities.
Guest lecture at Universidad de Girona on Deprivation of liberty of persons with disabilities.
Summer course at the Law Faculty, Universidad Autonóma de Madrid on access to justice of persons with disabilities from the perspective of detainees.