grace in your heart and flowers in your hair

[such_heights]

Things that are rubbish: being too ill to meet woldy as planned today. *shakes fist at unexpected bout of hypoglycaemia*

Things are are win: Contest: towards an accessible future

What does a world, or space station, or whatever look like when it has been designed to be accessible to everyone and how would people live together there?

What would your fully accessible world look like? I find it both tricky and amazing to imagine. A world where everyone's access needs are catered for, from a world that's fully accessible to wheelchair users to a work ethic that accommodates those with mental health difficulties, to shops and restaurants that are able to cater to every dietary requirement - the list goes on.

Comments

[glass_icarus]

Ooh, that is an interesting and awesome challenge!

[gorgeousnerd]

Sorry you were feeling poorly today.

I've been thinking about that contest ever since I saw it linked yesterday. I definitely want to give it a try, but you're right, it's tricky to think of how much it would affect the world. And at the same time, that's what's so wondrous about it, and why I want to try.

[fallingtowers]

I hope you have recovered a bit by now and can perhaps make up for the lost opportunity later.

[rosiphelee.livejournal.com]

Unexpected hypos suck. Hope you're getting back to okay now.

Hmm. I like that challenge. More from my teacher perspective than from the physical disability (because one of the things which has always drawn me to spec-fic is the elusive promise of a time and place where there really could be a cure) but I want to see how ADHD and dyslexia and ASD and different modes of thinking are accomodated in the future.

[rosiphelee.livejournal.com]

*ponders* Actually, on reflection, I'm still wrong. I can't think of a single dyslexic or dyspraxic I know who wouldn't want a cure. Some of the ASD and ADHD kids might be more ambivalent.

I guess what I want is a future where agency matters more than accessibility. Something about this sudden craze for accessibility is really bugging me, and I'm still trying to pin it down. It seems like a very facile approach to something so fundamental.

A good SF book on this is Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark - near future and about a high-functioning autistic pov character faced with deciding whether or not to take a newly invented cure for the condition. That's the kind of SF about disability I want to read - books that wrestle with the complexities of identity and society.

[such_heights]

Something about this sudden craze for accessibility is really bugging me, and I'm still trying to pin it down. It seems like a very facile approach to something so fundamental.

I really wouldn't describe it as facile or a sudden craze. Of course accessibility is far from the totality of things that should be discussed with regard to disability, but it's a pretty important part of the disability rights movement, and I think getting people to engage with the idea, especially in more open-minded ways like the challenge suggests, is really important. To me, accessibility is about agency, it's about enabling people to live more varied lives. There really is very little - I've certainly never read any - speculative fiction which deals with the question at all.

On the other hand, I can think of a lot of sci-fi, especially Very Special Disability episodes on various shows, that tackle the cure question, and rarely well. Which isn't to say it's not an interesting topic that can't be handled thoughtfully, but I think it's far from the only angle worth exploring. And obviously, every individual with a disability is different, but I can think of lots of people I know who don't have a particular interest in being 'cured', but rather in having the tools that allow them to lead the lives they want whilst being disabled.

[such_heights]

Also, yes, hypos really do blow, who'd have thought? I am feeling better now, thank you, though a little concerned as to whether one will strike again soon.

[rosiphelee.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know people have been talking about it for ages. It just seems to be all over my flist this week, more than usual.

Accessibility is an aspect of agency, but I get uneasy when it becomes the most talked about aspect. I want to see stories where disabled characters are in control of their own lives. Accessibility is part of that, but it's not quite the same thing. There's a mentality that I've come across in rl where some token gesture towards accessibility is seen as being enough (the old 'this candidate is dyslexic. Please do not reduce their mark for spelling errors' sticker on the front of an exam paper springs to mind) and I'm a little wary of the kind of externally-driven approach to accessibility which ignores the bigger issue behind it.

For me, personally, it doesn't bug me much that I'm being written out of idealistic far future fiction. The rest of fiction, I'm furious about. It makes me so angry that I can count the dyslexic characters I know of in fiction on one hand and can't even think of one diabetic in a published work (and only one fanfic that I've read). But I'm one of those people who'd sell other body parts for a cure, so I like not being there. It gives me something to hope for.

[such_heights]

Oh god, yes, the tokenistic stuff is really infuriating - I'm sure you see loads of that as a teacher. And I'd also agree that the vast underrepresentation in contemporary fiction is a much bigger issue.

Absolutely, yes, a future world where people aren't sick is a very hopeful one for a lot of people, I get that and I'm not criticising you for it at all, in case it came off like I was doing so.

Obviously I haven't been diabetic nearly long enough to know how I feel about it in terms of my identity - though I can't imagine I'd turn down a cure if offered. I do know that I don't want to be 'fixed' with regard to my depression, though. I want better tools to help me manage it, and I want to live in a world where mental health issues are better understood, researched, and accommodated for. I'd rather see a future world where people like me have an easier time of it, socially speaking, than a future world where people like me don't exist. I suppose it boils down to how each individual feels about their disability/illness in relation to their identity and life experience.

[rosiphelee.livejournal.com]

I've been riding a rage about lack of representation in contemporary fiction for months now (probably longer really, but I've been actively thinking about it for months). I've been trying to back off and think about something else for the last few weeks, which is why I'm a bit incoherent on this at the moment - it's all bubbling in the back of my brain.

I guess things like having space-stations with points where you can re-charge the batteries on your cyborg legs or where synth-silk can be used to reweave missing body parts are all interesting, but they feel like a drop in the ocean. I wonder if we could even run a community like lgbtq_recs for disability without running out of stuff before the end of the month.

I also understand that the myth of the Promised Cure can turn pretty toxic if handled clumsily. I wonder as well if the experiences of very different disabilities sit easily under the same heading - I know that my experience with an relatively minor unseen disability is radically different and vastly easier than that of someone with severe mobility difficulties and different again from that of someone with a particular learning difficulty or with depression.

It didn't come across as criticism at all :) Hope I didn't come off as hostile - I'm typing at thinking speed. It's good to actually discuss these issues - they're not really on the radar for most people.

[rosiphelee.livejournal.com]

The bastards usually wait until you relax and stop watching out for them before they strike again. ;)

More seriously, it'll swing up and down a bit for a day or so after a big one, so just keep a eye on your blood sugars until they stabilise and keep the glucose tablets to hand. Quickest boost I use is a mug of hot water with lots of sugar stirred in, followed by digestive biscuits because they're more slow-acting and easy to eat with shaking hands. I always have a pack of those stashed somewhere.