Disability and Mobility

Pointless guidance: ethnomethodology, crip theory and mobility

Public talk by Eric Laurier (University of Edinburgh) and Daniel Muñoz (Universidad de Chile)

Abstract

McRuer’s crip theory as ‘ability trouble’ asks us to consider the usually silent partner of disability, its normal – the able. Narrowing our concern here we consider the sighted as the massively present and overlooked, compulsory sighted-ness. Disability studies have examined the inter-relationality and inter-corporeality of embodied action and the disabling landscapes through which people move. It has revealed much about care and the dependent nature of everyday walking, providing insight into able-bodied expectations alongside the lived experience of disabilities. In parallel, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EMCA) have sought to learn about visually organised mobilities by trying to understand the particulars of what a visually impaired person is up against in moving through a world assembled by, and for, the sighted. To begin to show what EMCA’s distinctive approach to mobility and embodied action might offer crip's theory and concepts of care, we will examine a video of an everyday setting made by a well-known blind Youtuber, Joy Ross. Joy is finding her way through a retail space with the assistance of sighted staff and other customers. All too often the sighted are pointing out the way when those very gestures are inaccessible to a visually impaired person. Orienting, guiding and direction-giving here, as in other public spaces, constitute a site for the instruction of the able in assistance, toward dependence and public care. These wayfinding practices are themselves produced in mobile actions of approaching & being approached, of guiding and being guided, of seeing and seeing for.

Biographies

Eric Laurier is a Professor of Geography and Interaction at the University of Edinburgh. His approach arises out of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis and its intersection with ordinary language philosophy. He has interests in mobility, public space, care, cafes, cars and creative practices. Together with Daniel Muñoz, he has been studying the routine troubles of visually impaired persons in particular places.

Daniel Muñoz is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Universidad de Chile. His current research project focuses on the interdependent mobilities of visually impaired people, as they travel together with relatives, friends, and guide dogs in Santiago de Chile. Daniel is interested in everyday mobilities, public transport infrastructure, and the making of accessibility through ordinary interactions.