FCJ-188 Disability’s Digital Frictions: Activism, Technology, and Politics

Katie Ellis Curtin University Gerard Goggin University of Sydney Mike Kent Curtin University Introduction Increasingly, disability is acknowledged as a key part of society, public and private spheres, and everyday life. Moreover, disability has achieved notable recognition and endorsement as an area of inequality, oppression, and discrimination that requires concerted global and local action. We see various markers of this transformation in the social relations of disability. In the legal realm there is the enactment of the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Arnardóttir and Quinn, 2009; Flynn, 2011), and the cumulative effect of many important laws and regulations enacted by governments around the world (Francis and Silver, 2000; Waddington, Quinn and Flynn, 2015). Related positive developments include greater visibility and potency of people with disabilities in public spheres and counter public spheres. There is increasing acknowledgement of the specific gender, class, race, and sexuality dimensions […]