CripTech Manifesto

CripTech Manifesto

From UC Berkeley’s RadMad Lab
  1. Too often, disabled people have been the putative target of “inclusive design.” However, this is done with imagined, fictionalized, reductive, disabled persons. What is missing are the actual bodies and minds and experiences of disabled users. The CripTech Manifesto
  2. Normate engineers and architects are interested in “sophisticating function,” that is, the new and shiny: The CripTech Manifesto
    • Folding white cane vs. laser range-finding cane
    • wheelchair that can climb chairs vs. wheelchair that is user-serviceable, waterproof and has headlights
  3. What happens when disabled people gain the skills to design for ourselves?
    • Ala Costa — designed a program for autistic youth transitioning to adulthood.
    • Tokyo U — designing a user-led research venture that empowers disabled people to be co-researchers, co-publishers, and co-creators.
    • SF Lighthouse for the Blind — Designing a building that is not “accessible” to the blind, but is “delightful” to its blind occupants.
  4. What do we need to get from here?
    • The basic tools of design and making need to be accessible themselves.
    • STEM visualizations need to be accessible
    • We need to #occupy — disabled people need to be in places where they can make that difference. Just being in the room changes things.
  5. The CripTech movement needs to be inclusive and intersectional.
    • Understand disability’s intersections with
      • poverty
      • gender
      • sexuality
      • racialized minoritization
      • access to to adequate healthcare and housing
      • effects of trauma, war and dislocation
    • Positionality: No one can understand or speak for all disabilities. No one can even understand or speak for all variations of their own disability. We need #powerinnumbers
    • We cannot make some disabilities “bad” disabilities that we don’t discuss; addiction and fatness being two primary marginalized groups in the disability community.
Image Description: Four figures stand in succession, each with a different disability. An IV bag is attached to the first figure, who holds a wrench and kneels next to the next figure on a wheelchair. The wheelchair has flames coming out of it and the figure appears to take off. The third figure sports a prosthetic arm and leg, while the fourth figure displays neural and coronary implants. The fourth figure holds the leash to a dog, who also has a prosthetic leg. All prosthetics pop off the page in a vibrant orange, against a dark blue background and white figures.
Image Description: Four figures stand in succession, each with a different disability. An IV bag is attached to the first figure, who holds a wrench and kneels next to the next figure on a wheelchair. The wheelchair has flames coming out of it and the figure appears to take off. The third figure sports a prosthetic arm and leg, while the fourth figure displays neural and coronary implants. The fourth figure holds the leash to a dog, who also has a prosthetic leg. All prosthetics pop off the page in a vibrant orange, against a dark blue background and white figures.

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