Article

Universal design (UD) is oriented to creating products, buildings,
outdoor spaces and services for use by all people to the fullest extent possible
according to principles of enabling equal citizenship. Nevertheless its
theoretical basis has been under-explored, a critique that has also been leveled
at rehabilitation. This commentary explores parallels between UD and dominant
rehabilitation discourses that risk privileging or discrediting particular ways
of being and doing. METHODS: Commentary. RESULTS:
Drawing from examples that
explore the intersection of bodies, places and technologies with disabled people,
I examined how practices of normalization risk reproducing the universalized body
and legitimated forms of mobility, and in so doing perpetuates the "othering" of
difference. To address these limitations, I explored the postmodern notion of
multiple creative "assemblages" that are continually made and broken over time
and space. Assemblages resist normalization tendencies by acknowledging and
fostering multiple productive dependencies between human and non-human elements
that include diverse bodies, not just those labeled disabled. CONCLUSION: In
exploring the potential of enhancing creative assemblages and multiple
dependencies, space opens up in UD and rehabilitation for acknowledging,
developing, and promoting a multiplicity of bodily forms and modes of mobility.
Implications for Rehabilitation Universal design and rehabilitation both risk
perpetuating particular ideas about what disabled people should be, do, and
value, that privilege a limited range of particular bodily forms. The notion of
"assemblages" provides a conceptual tool for rethinking negative views of
dependence and taken for granted independence goals. In exploring the potential
of enhancing various dependencies, space opens up for reconsidering disability,
mobility and multiple ways of "doing-in-the-world".

Langue : ANGLAIS