Accessibility Studies: Abuses, Misuses and the Method of Poietic Design

Abstract

Over the past several decades, accessibility has been increasingly pervading a vast range of fields, producing a large number of new ideas, theories, and innovations that have already proven to be quite fruitful. A closer look at how accessibility has entered and developed in various research fields shows that said fields have experienced fundamental changes: a shift from particularist accounts to a universalist account of access, ¬¬a shift from maker-centred to usercentred approaches, and a shift from reactive to proactive approaches. Through these processes, accessibility has birthed new areas within those fields, that have been gradually converging to constitute the wider field of accessibility studies. The nature and position of accessibility studies has now become a central topic. This ongoing progression of conceptual clarification may bear some misunderstanding and misinterpretations along the way. In the paper, I first briefly review the principal traits of the process of formation of accessibility studies; then address some possible misconceptions; and finally, introduce a first, very general sketch of poietic design, a method proper to accessibility studies.

Towards a pedagogy of accessibility: The need for critical learning spaces in media accessibility education and training

“…The three accounts are not axiologically neutral nor do they merely vary in what they consider to be part of MA. Refusing to acknowledge the importance of dealing with the different positions of MA, dismissing it as a mere matter of perspective, is highly controversial (Greco, 2019c). The critical lens of AS helps to reveal that they differ substantially because they are grounded in opposite value-laden and theory-laden views on accessibility and disability, and entail different ontological commitments on social reality (Calder, 2008).…”

“…Actually, once coupled with user-centred and proactive approaches (Greco, 2018) and with a poietic model of agency (Greco, 2013a(Greco, , 2019b(Greco, , 2019cGreco & Pedone, 2015), the universalist account even allows for addressing the limits of the social model of disability, which have been pointed out by many disability studies scholars (e.g., Shakespeare & Watson, 2001;Thomas, 2007), and for overcoming them through what I have called an atimic or social model of accessibility (Greco, 2013a(Greco, , 2017a(Greco, , 2019c. In this model, disability is an instantiation of a general process of deterioration or negation of equal status to all human beings.…”

“…This model calls for an active participation of all agents involved, each one with a voice and a role in the co-construction of a solution. Accessibility then becomes the tool through which society should act poietically to create a social environment that is equitable and just for all (Greco, 2013a(Greco, , 2019c).…”

Framing Media Accessibility Quality

“…However, this view considers access problems as merely a case of a more general class of translation problems. As discussed in Greco (2019), this is rather controversial and could lead to a series of abuses and misuses of both translation and accessibility. AVT and MA do not overlap, but rather, intersect.…”

“…In MA, where the aim is to provide access to an equitable experience, these aspects are not secondary at all. The new position of MA as an area of accessibility studies, that only intersects with translation studies, requires us to start looking at the issue of quality from other points of view beyond translation (Greco, 2019;Greco & Jankowska, in press).…”