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Care in the (critical) making: Open prototyping, or the radicalisation of independent-living politics

ETS

New article forthcoming in Alter – European Journal of Disability research, Revue européenne de recherche sur le handicap 10 (2016), pp. 24-39 (Special issue on Care & Disability, edited by E. Fillion, M. Winance, A. Damamme).

Care in the (critical) making: Open prototyping, or the radicalisation of independent-living politics

Written in collaboration with Israel Rodríguez Giralt & Arianna Mencaroni

ABSTRACT

In this paper we reflect empirically on some collective attempts at intervening the ways in which care for and by disabled people is being devised and carried out in Spain in austerity times. We highlight the novelties and challenges of the way in which these projects seek to tackle the current crisis of care through different forms of self-fabrication of ‘open’ and ‘low cost’ technical aids. We analyse them as forms of ‘critical making’ expanding the repertoire of independent-living and disabled people’s rights politics to the experimentation with technological production. Through the deployment of an empirical example of the prototyping process by the Barcelona-based activist design collective En torno a la silla we show how open prototyping constitutes a major challenge for the radicalisation of the independent-living movement’s precepts of control and choice, displaying the matter of care arrangements and making available its transformation.
KEYWORDS
Care; arrangements; independent living; critical making; prototypes

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is part of an ongoing and very interesting discussion on careful design practices with our En torno a la silla mates (Alida Díaz, Antonio Centeno, Marga Alonso, Núria Gómez, Rai Vilatovà & Xavi Duacastilla) as well as the very nice people we have learnt to think with in the construction of its interactive documentary. To name but a few: Alma Orozco, Joaquim Fonoll, Mario Toboso, Carlos ‘Txarlie’ Tomás, Montse García and the Functional Diversity Commission at Acampada Sol. These ideas have also been extremely well taken care of and re-elaborated in the course of discussions and passionate politico-ethnographical reflections on design and care with Adolfo Estalella, Asun Pie, Blanca Callén, Carla Boserman, Daniel López, Jara Rocha, Marcos Cereceda, Manuel Tironi & Miriam Arenas.

FUNDING

This work was supported by the Spanish National R&D Programme 2012-2014, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the research project: ‘Expertise, Democracy and Social Mobilisation (EXPDEM): The Political Action of Groups Concerned with the Promotion of Independent-Living in Spain’ (CSO2011-29749-C02-02); and the Alliance 4 Universities postdoctoral grant for Tomás Sánchez Criado’s individual project ‘A study of participatory and collaborative design experiences of care and independent-living technologies’ (ExPart, Oct. 2012- Oct. 2014).

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