Accessibility and Space
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Disability and Space:
In "The Social Construction of Disability," Susan Wendell suggests: "Expectations of performance are reflected, because they are assumed, in the social organization and physical structure of a society, both of which create disability." What is Access? "Access [is] . . . a way of relating to people and places . . . an interpretive relation between bodies . . . a way people have of relating to the ways they are embodied as beings in the particular places where they find themselves" (3) "Access, then, is tied to the social organization of participation, even to belonging" (4) "complicated matter of meaning-making that always arises between people and places, between bodies and social space." (8) "disability is a prominent 'sense-making' device, a kind of language used to make sense of all that which troubles us in contemporary times." (5) What questions does access raise for us? "Who has access? Access to where? Access to what? When? . . . How is it
that we regard some aspects of everyday life as an access concern and others as not?" (13) "Through unexamined relations to both disability and non-disability, the idea that the world is 'naturally' for some and not for others is reproduced . . . this act of naturalizing some bodies as naturally lacking access and, therefore, excludable . . ." (6) "Despite its complicated meaning, access seems to enter our lives not so much as a question but as a demand" (7) Bureaucracy, Disability, and Access "As obvious as it is that the physical environment is materially organized so as to make participation difficult, if not impossible, for some people, it is not obvious how this exclusion sustains itself" (7) "within the contemporary university system, access and inclusion issues are almost always addressed through bureaucratic processes." (8) 'Bureaucracy' refers to a hierarchal and regularized form of structured procedure usually managed by an office or official of an organization . . . that governs itself and others by making use of established protocols and procedures- these are usually put into text as rules and regulations" (8) "it is this depersonalized character of bureaucratic management that can be understood as its key valued feature as well as its most intractable problem . . . [the] paradox of bureaucracy" (9) |
Tanya Titchkosky |