Shanel: Mapping Acces, Critical Accessiblilty
8. How does Critical accessibility mapping work to open up and transform usership? (456-457) What constitutes critical access studies? (459-460)? Shanel
Critical accessibility mapping is transforming and expanding usership. Creating a dynamic digital project has expanded users beyond the traditional creators and policy-makers to include the general public. Since the project is crowd-sourced, each person's lived experiences, perspectives, and expertise is valued instead of a PDF map created by perhaps a single person. Opening it up to the public also means that disabled folks are able to report on the issues that affect them most and are respected as experts, not subjects. Having own voices perspectives supplies more useful and accessible information for map users. Since it goes beyond the compliant/non-compliant binary, there is more helpful content and context within it. Traditional compliance maps may only be examining one disability, but opening it up to crowd-sourcing layers the possibilities for usership. It has more perspectives informing it, more users will find it useful, and gives power back to the communities affected.
Critical Access Studies examines disability rights and justice beyond the ADA and compliant/non-compliant binary with a focus on intersectionality. Critical Access Studies disrupts the belief that the ADA and disability policies are neutral. It was created with a limited capitalist perspective focusing on how mostly white men who used wheelchairs could be inserted into the labor market and continue consuming. ADA compliancy is baseline. Critical Access Studies asserts that making accessible spaces is an ongoing process that should be reexamined continually.
When reading about the critical accessibility mapping project, I wondered how a balance could be struck between user privacy needs the ability to supply informed perspectives. Since the crowd-sourced map is limited to a campus community, presumably smaller than a city, how can the student or user's privacy be upheld? Are there ways to honor the unique backgrounds and perspectives of the user while also omitting names and other identifiable characteristics that could open them up to potential harassment or discrimination by folks on campus?
Critical accessibility mapping is transforming and expanding usership. Creating a dynamic digital project has expanded users beyond the traditional creators and policy-makers to include the general public. Since the project is crowd-sourced, each person's lived experiences, perspectives, and expertise is valued instead of a PDF map created by perhaps a single person. Opening it up to the public also means that disabled folks are able to report on the issues that affect them most and are respected as experts, not subjects. Having own voices perspectives supplies more useful and accessible information for map users. Since it goes beyond the compliant/non-compliant binary, there is more helpful content and context within it. Traditional compliance maps may only be examining one disability, but opening it up to crowd-sourcing layers the possibilities for usership. It has more perspectives informing it, more users will find it useful, and gives power back to the communities affected.
Critical Access Studies examines disability rights and justice beyond the ADA and compliant/non-compliant binary with a focus on intersectionality. Critical Access Studies disrupts the belief that the ADA and disability policies are neutral. It was created with a limited capitalist perspective focusing on how mostly white men who used wheelchairs could be inserted into the labor market and continue consuming. ADA compliancy is baseline. Critical Access Studies asserts that making accessible spaces is an ongoing process that should be reexamined continually.
When reading about the critical accessibility mapping project, I wondered how a balance could be struck between user privacy needs the ability to supply informed perspectives. Since the crowd-sourced map is limited to a campus community, presumably smaller than a city, how can the student or user's privacy be upheld? Are there ways to honor the unique backgrounds and perspectives of the user while also omitting names and other identifiable characteristics that could open them up to potential harassment or discrimination by folks on campus?
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