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I’m Not Sure We’ve Been Introduced: Disability Meets Technology

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Disability and Technology

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Abstract

Having looked at the theorising of disability and theories of technology singly, this chapter explores the intersection of and thinking on disability and technology. What then were the earliest conceptual constructions of technology and disability? Prior to the 1980s, academic research on disability and technology was largely confined to rehabilitation or occupational therapy focused work. This was largely but not entirely framed as technical appraisal of new or existing aids to living, including wheelchairs, orthotics, prosthetics, leg callipers and mobility aids. A small number of studies went beyond this technical evaluation brief to begin to conceptualise how technology was comprehended and the wider personal and social implications of it for disabled people. Put simply, people began to emerge from being mere biomedical units of assessment to acquiring the ontological status of social actors who in time became a key part of specific clinical research. It would be wrong, however, to assume a sort of linear progress towards greater social contexualisation of disabled people or any clear handing over of power to them; indeed the words ‘patient’ and ‘service user’ continue to have very different connotations and to shape research frameworks (McLaughlin 2009). The following captures the mental landscape of academic work before 1980. As with a lot of the funded research on disability back then, it was sponsored by medical and royal societies which were the arbiters of much disability provision. This quote is taken from the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine:

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    Alan Roulstone

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Roulstone, A. (2016). I’m Not Sure We’ve Been Introduced: Disability Meets Technology. In: Disability and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-45042-5_3

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