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Lekei, Madelaine Maureen

University of British Columbia

Digital technologies, as many scholars articulate, are neither passive, neutral, nor isolated as they are embedded within political, social, and economic systems that contribute to uneven access and produce inequalities for the people who engage with and rely on digital mechanisms and tools (Burkell, Fortier, Wong, and Simpson 2014; Plesner and Phillips 2013; Baym and boyd 2012; Lievrouw 2011; Franklin 2011; Ito 2008). For disabled people, self-advocates, and their allies, digital spaces and tools provide critical opportunities to participate in telling their own stories, collectively learn from each other, engage in activism, and build supportive communities that may not be available in their immediate physical surroundings (Ginsburg 2012; Parr and Davidson 2010). Access is a core component that defines how people interact with and in digital spaces, which underscores the importance of gaining insights into how disabled people are working together to improve digital accessibility. Considering this reality, coupled with the ongoing complexities of COVID-19 that have necessitated a reliance on digital mechanisms, it is crucial to ensure that digital spaces and resources are designed in an accessible manner so that disabled people can equitably participate within and through the digital mechanisms in their daily lives. Through a digital ethnographic approach informed by feminist and crip theory as well as the principles of community engaged research and Disability Justice, this thesis garners critical insights into how disabled individuals, self-advocates, and their allies are collaborating to develop, improve, and encourage more equitable access and practices within digital environments. By following the digital and networked experiences of fourteen individuals who identify with various forms of disability, this thesis explores how the daily activities within digital spaces become the means through which disabled people reimagine identity, kinship, community, equitable democratic assembly, meaningful civic participation, accessible movement building, and disability world making in North America today.

Text

2022-08-19

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/82420

Interdisciplinary Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/