Accessibility, Disability, and Inclusion in Information
Technologies: Introduction
Introduction
The pages of
The Information Society
have hosted and incubated a
number of fine critical studies and discussions of inclusion and
accessibility, not least on topics such as universal service, digital
divide, community networking, development, and access to information,
Internet, and telecommunications. In one sense, then, this special issue
foregrounds questions of accessibility and inclusion as they are raised by
disability. This may function as a more-or-less recognizable and indeed
common characterization and understanding of disability. Indeed, the
various contributions to this collection certainly do advance our
understanding of the fundamental aspects of disability and impairment as
they interact with and are constructed by information technologies. With
the rise of concepts of the information society and developments with
convergent information and communications technologies, this is a topic
that has gradually become visible and legible to scholars, policymakers,
scientists and technologists, business people, and civil society
organizations. It still has not received, however, the sustained study,
analysis, and debate it merits, so we hope the articles we present here
will further this enquiry.
Our theme, however, has wider and deeper implications than are usually
warranted, when it is customarily regarded as a "special," specialized,
minority, or marginalized concern. Disability raises many of the questions
considered in this journal: struggles for democracy in the information
society; computers, networks, and work; e-commerce; construction of
identity; the relations of gender, class, and ethnicity; and social and
cultural shaping of technology. Disability needs to be framed in much
larger, less conceptually barren and constraining ways than it has been.
There is a dawning recognition of the important role that disability plays
in the complex social, economic, and political environments of information
technologies. When we do acknowledge these overarching bearings of
disability, we find that, in various respects, we think disability stands
to cross-fertilize these debates in timely, interdisciplinary, and
multivoiced ways. This, at least, is our desire, in bringing forth these
articles.
The special issue has its origins in a summer institute held in May
2005 at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, where earlier
versions of most of the articles were presented. This colloquium was one
of an annual series convened by the Canadian Disability and Information
Technologies (Dis-IT) Research Alliance. The Dis-IT Research Alliance
brings together academics and policymakers with a wide range of
information technology companies, technologists, designers, advocacy
organizations of people with disabilities, and service providers. The
alliance is jointly led by Professor Deborah Stienstra from the
Interdisciplinary Master's Program in Disability Studies at the University
of Manitoba, and Gary Annable, based at the Council of Canadians for
Disabilities, two of the editors of this issue. Among other sources, its
large-scale program of research is largely funded by the Initiative on the
New Economy program of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
(SSHRC) of Canada. The Dis-IT researchers have also joined with Australian
counterparts to undertake an exploratory comparative study of disability,
and one of these partners, Gerard Goggin from the University of Sydney, is
the third editor.
The articles we have selected here may be placed in this context of
long-term engagement, dialogue, and collaborative research and design
deeply investigating the recurrent problems and paradoxes of accessibility
and inclusion when it comes to disability and information technologies.
Although there has been much work over the past two decades in
understanding disability, in accessible and universal design, and in
conceptualizing and critiquing inclusion and how it is produced through
policies, practices, and technologies, we still lack answers to, and
indeed workable strategies for, foundational questions of knowledge.
If accessibility allows more people to use technologies, so activating
human rights, citizenship, and the possibilities of everyday life, why do
we not see more inclusive technologies - especially in the much-vaunted
realm of digital technologies? If designing technologies with the needs
and aspirations of users in mind is not only a goal of social justice, but
is also profitable, why are not businesses flocking to do it? If we now
have readily available information on and perspectives from people with
disabilities, why do policymakers not avail themselves of it? If there is
much more acceptance of disability as a social, rather than purely
medical, phenomenon, and greater public support for the removal of
barriers and for an end to discrimination and exclusion of people with
disabilities, why are information technologies - often the newest, most
heralded ones - still disabling? What are the perspectives of the various
actors on disability and technology, from the scientists and
technologists, to those striving to ensure profitability in global firms,
through those setting rules that create markets, and nongovernmental
actors in disability organizations, to the users themselves and how they
adopt, resist, or domesticate the technology, and, finally, to the
technologies themselves as nonhuman actors in their own right? Written
from a variety of perspectives, the following six articles address such
foundational, troubling problematics, and seek to contribute useful
insights, as well as indicating fruitful avenues for future research,
policy, and technology development.
In "A Three-Way Dance: The Global Public Good and Accessibility in
Information Technologies," James Watzke and Gary Birch join Deborah
Stienstra to enlarge the scene of accessibility to encompass its global
dimensions, and also to place two other important actors in the frame:
governments and disability advocacy organizations. They offer a nuanced
account of the articulation that regulation, usable products and
standards, and education can creatively transform the contradictions at
play among these three interdependent entities so often in unproductive,
fatalistic conflict.
Gerard Goggin and Christopher Newell also recognize the various parties
involved in the creation and perpetuation of disability in their "The
Business of Digital Disability." They recognize the potential of business
engagement, and also the possibilities that flow from new paradigms of
governance and self-regulation, for promoting accessibility. However, they
also argue for the importance of an adequate theoretical account of the
power relations of disability. This is indispensable for any genuine
comprehension of the shaping of information technology and the betterment
of the situation of people with disabilities through its
democratization.
Aldred H. Neufeldt, James Watzke, Gary Birch, and Denise Buchner's
"Engaging the Business/Industrial Sector in Accessibility Research:
Lessons in Bridge Building" squarely discusses the vexed issue of how to
create genuine partnerships between research institutions and industry, in
order to pursue what should be common goals of improving accessibility.
Inspired by the difficulties they faced as researchers in opening doors to
their industry and business counterparts, Neufeldt and his coauthors give
us rare insider views on why the business of accessibility is so difficult
to sustain.
These three research articles are authored by researchers located in,
or holding adjunct appointments in, universities. The next three
perspective articles are rare contributions by industry and policy
practitioners and researchers.
In his "Accessibility and Product Ecologies" Jim Tobias draws on
extensive, high-level experience in seeking to have accessibility taken
for granted as a part of business profitability and technology design. He
offers a lucid diagnosis of how products are conceived and made, and
suggests precisely where accessibility might be inserted.
Another accomplished, expert business leader in accessibility
technology and design, Helen Maskery, explicitly addresses one of the most
mystifying and contested facets of accessible information technologies:
the bedrock commercial discourse on the prospects for profitability. Her
"Crossing the Digital Divide: Possibilities for Influencing the Private
Sector Business Case" is an invaluable treatment of how industry
approaches accessibility.
In the third and final perspective piece, "Working for Barrier Removal
in the ICT Area: Creating a More Accessible and Inclusive Canada," April
D'Aubin discusses the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. Socially and
culturally distinctive understanding of disability, and reviews its
engagements with government and industry in accessible information
technology. They argue the case for a strong human rights approach, and
governmental and regulatory framework, to create the preconditions for
market actors to deliver accessibility and to be motivated by goals of
inclusion and equality.
We are grateful to
The Information Society
's general editor,
Professor Harmeet Sawhney, for his enthusiastic and supportive response to
this special issue. We believe the journal is a fitting venue for these
emerging debates and new knowledge on disability and information
technology, and look forward to the response of
TIS
's readers.
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The Information Society
, Volume
23, Issue 3 May 2007 , pages 145 - 147