David Wästerfors
Professor
Required to be creative : Everyday ways for dealing with inaccessibility
Author
Summary, in English
Today’s society promises that people with disabilities can access anything, but in practice there are numerous obstacles, and the ways in which people deal with them can be easily missed or taken for granted by policy makers. This article draws on a project in which researchers ‘go along’ people with disabilities in Sweden who demonstrate and recount accessibility troubles in urban and digital settings. They display a set of mundane methods for managing inaccessibility: (a) using others, (b) making deals and establishing routines, (c) mimicking or piggybacking conventions, (d) debunking others’ accounts and performing local politics. The employment of these shared but tailored methods shows the difficulties to be accepted that people with disabilities still face, as well as the wide-ranging tension that exists between the grand rhetoric of inclusion and modest results. The tension implies that people with disabilities are required to be creative.
Department/s
- Sociology
- Department of Sociology
Publishing year
2021
Language
English
Pages
265-285
Publication/Series
Disability & Society
Volume
36
Issue
2
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Routledge
Topic
- Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Keywords
- accessibility
- disability
- go-along
- ethnomethods
- creativity
- exclusion
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0968-7599