Vanessa Thomas
ABSTRACT
This paper reflects upon disableism and constrained computing by drawing on a recent multi-stage mixed methods research project that focused on a "public washrooms" open dataset released by the City of Vancouver. During that project, I encountered some of the ways that open data can be used to expose, reproduce, and transpose infrastructural inequalities related to disability. The project reminded me that many digital technologies and "sustainable practices" are disableist: they privilege certain ways of being that discriminate against the 'less able'. Examples can be readily found in online digital technologies that have only been designed for interaction through sight or sound, in the "sustainability"-driven outcry against pre-cut vegetables and fruit, or in calls for direct action that do not accommodate the diverse physical and cognitive abilities of relevant communities. Although surely of interest to many members of the LIMITS community, issues of ableism and disableism have yet to be explicitly addressed in our papers. My paper addresses this gap, and ends with a call for the LIMITS community to check our privilege(s), grapple explicitly with disableism, and imagine a more just, inclusive future.
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Index Terms
- Disableism and constrained computing: checking privilege and power in a future of limits
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