Inheritance and Access

Dr. Jonathan Flowers (he/him)

(Sponsored by College of Information Studies)

2021 Disability Summit
April 13, 2021 – 1:30 PM-2:00 PM

Twitter: @shengokai
Email: jflowers@worcester.edu

Abstract

While previously impossible modes of accommodation have become widely available during COVID-19, I argue that these accommodations should be distinguished from the kinds of accessibility demanded by disabled activists for decades. While these modes of access are superficially similar, their purpose serves to maintain the same inaccessible world that existed prior to the advent of COVID-19.

Drawing on the work of Sara Ahmed, I argue that COVID accommodations themselves are ways of extending the world organized around able-bodied individuals and thus a world that can be inherited only by able bodied individuals. To this end, these accommodations neither account for the experience of disability, nor do they address the unique ways that disabled activists have advocated for accommodations.

On this basis, I argue that this understanding of COVID accommodations can allow us to reconsider and re-understand the ways that pre-COVID disability accommodations do not accurately accomplish the aims projected by disabled activists of a more inclusive and accessible world, a world that can be inherited by all.While previously impossible modes of accommodation have become widely available during COVID-19, I argue that these accommodations should be distinguished from the kinds of accessibility demanded by disabled activists for decades. While these modes of access are superficially similar, their purpose serves to maintain the same inaccessible world that existed prior to the advent of COVID-19.

Drawing on the work of Sara Ahmed, I argue that COVID accommodations themselves are ways of extending the world organized around able-bodied individuals and thus a world that can be inherited only by able bodied individuals. To this end, these accommodations neither account for the experience of disability, nor do they address the unique ways that disabled activists have advocated for accommodations.

On this basis, I argue that this understanding of COVID accommodations can allow us to reconsider and re-understand the ways that pre-COVID disability accommodations do not accurately accomplish the aims projected by disabled activists of a more inclusive and accessible world, a world that can be inherited by all.

Speech Text (.doc)

Presentation Slides (.pdf)

Bio

Dr. Johnathan Flowers is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Worcester State University. His current research focuses on developing an affective theory of experience, identity, and personhood through bridging American Pragmatism, Japanese Aesthetics, and Phenomenology. Flowers’ work also explores how identities are lived affectively through technology and society, with a specific emphasis on race, gender, and disability.