Disability Justice Futures

Disability justice, collective access, interdependence, bodymind, Crip, Mad, access intimacy, access rider, access guide/menu, Crip technoscience, disability-led innovation, mutual aid tech, technological refusal, refusal as design, Crip time, slow tech, accessibility, radical access, access friction, community protocol, AIDS activism, ACT UP, curb cut effect, Independent Living (IL), universal design, ASL, LSQ, BSL, audio description, ALT text, screen readers, plain language, CART captioning, notetaking, sensory-friendly design

1. Understand accessibility and disability justice as they relate to technology. Explore accessibility as both a set of tools (like ASL, screen readers, ALT text, and plain language) and a framework grounded in the politics of access, care, and participation. Understand disability justice as an intersectional framework led by disabled BIPOC that centers collective liberation, interdependence, and systemic transformation. Learn how both apply to technological and new media contexts.
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2. Identify how ableism shapes technological systems. Recognize how ableism is embedded in the design, distribution, and governance of technologies: physical, digital, cultural, and institutional. Analyze how the absence or failure of accessibility supports reflects deeper systemic exclusion, particularly for Black, Indigenous, Mad, and disabled communities.
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3. Learn from disability-led technological practices. Explore how disabled and Mad communities innovate through mutual aid, bodymind knowledge, and adaptive practices. Understand access hacks, low-tech tools, and community protocols as examples of crip technoscience that challenge dominant ideas of innovation.
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4. Examine accessibility as relational and multifaceted. Move beyond individual accommodation models to see access as an evolving, collective practice that spans physical, sensory, cognitive, emotional, financial, cultural, and linguistic dimensions. Reflect on how access is shaped through relationships, trust, and shared responsibility.
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5. Reflect on care, time, and interdependence in tech design. Engage with concepts like crip time, slow tech, and access intimacy to challenge dominant tech values like urgency, optimization, and individualism. Consider how interdependence and sustainability can transform how we design and interact with technology.
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6. Imagine liberatory tech futures shaped by disability justice. Envision technological spaces grounded in justice, not just inclusion. Consider how abolitionist design, trauma-informed approaches, technological refusal, and decolonial practices open up new possibilities for cultural sovereignty, safety, and collective access.