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Keynote Speaker: Ashley Shew
Tuesday, November 7, 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.
Cyborg Concerns & Disability Services
Location: Colorado A-F
ASHLEY SHEW is an associate professor of science, technology, and society at Virginia Tech and cofounder of the Disability Community Technology (DisCoTec) center there. She specializes in disability studies and technology ethics. Her books include Against Technoableism, Animal Constructions and Technological Knowledge, and Spaces for the Future (coedited). She lives in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Cyborg Concerns & Disability Services
Rethinking Who Needs Improvement, this talk takes us through the divergence of rhetoric between typical news coverage about addressing problems related to disability and what The Cyborg Jillian Weise calls “Cyborg Concerns.” Disabled people often center different problems and raise different concerns than our technicians, physicians, and wider society consider important. Professionals in disability services are situated at an important point of contact between these two worldviews, whether or not they are disabled themselves. Being an a11y to disabled people sometimes means working through a system premised on one worldview while trying to serve the interests of another, finding workarounds and serving as translator and informant.
