Accessibility Denied. Understanding Inaccessibility and Everyday Resistance to Inclusion for Persons with Disabilities

Hanna Egard, Kristofer Hansson, David Wästerfors, Hanna Egard, Kristofer Hansson, David Wästerfors

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000512700
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Behinderungen in der Soziologie

This book explores the societal resistance to accessibility for persons with disabilities, and tries to set an example of how to study exclusion in a time when numerous policies promise inclusion.

With 12 chapters organised in three parts, the book takes a comprehensive approach to accessibility, covering transport and communication, knowledge and education, law and organisation. Topics within a wide cross-disciplinary field are covered, including disability studies, social work, sociology, ethnology, social anthropology, and history. The main example is Sweden, with its implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities within the context of the Nordic welfare state. By identifying and discussing persistent social and cultural conditions as well as recurring situations and interactions that nurture resistance to advancing accessibility, despite various strong laws promoting it, the book's conclusions are widely transferable. It argues for the value of alternating between methods, theoretical perspectives, and datasets to explore how new arenas, resources and technologies cause new accessibility concerns — and possibilities — for persons living with impairments. We need to be able to follow actors closely to uncover how they feel, act, and argue, but also to connect to wider discursive and institutional patterns and systems.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students of disability studies, social work, sociology, ethnology, social anthropology, political science, and organisation studies.

Part 1

City and transport

DOI: 10.4324/9781003120452-2

Artwork by Sam Sohlberg

1 Accessible enough? Legitimising half-measures of accessibility in Swedish urban environments

Hanna Egard

DOI: 10.4324/9781003120452-3

Staircases are tangible illustrations of inaccessibility: they often lock out and exclude people with disabilities from entering an establishment independently and safely. Although staircases might be an overused and almost clichéd illustration of inaccessibility it is still a fact that many establishments are only accessible via a staired entrance. While conducting fieldwork as a part of a research project entitled ‘Accessibility and its resistance’¹ I and the other researchers found staired entrances to all sorts of establishments, such as pharmacies, health care providers and service centres, shops, restaurants, pubs, art galleries and travel agencies. When interviewing accessibility officers and building permit administrators – the professionals who are formally responsible for enforcing regulations on accessibility in the built environment – I found that they were well aware of these obstacles to independent access and participation. One of them even said: ‘If you go for a walk on the pedestrian street here, I think, I can promise you, 90 per cent of all entrances have two, three steps up.’

During our fieldwork we came across well-planned areas with, for example, wheelchair-accessible entrances, paving and suitable contrast markings. But we also saw and experienced the opposite: uneven cobblestone paving, tilting pavements, unmarked crossings, narrow doors and steep stairs. This inconsistency in accessibility means that people with disabilities are both included and excluded as citizens and consumers in the urban environment (Hansson, 2019). Since accessibility is unpredictable it takes planning, time, effort, creativity and help from others to deal with obstacles and hindrances in shopping malls and city centres, and many people with disabilities tend to prefer well-known areas or settings, which they know how best to navigate (Mazurik et al., 2015; Lid & Solvang, 2016; Wästerfors, 2020).

The forms of accessibility measures required under the Swedish planning and building act depend on whether or not the building is listed, if it is to be reconstructed or if it is open to the public (Svensson, 2015; SFS, 2010: 900). What is required is, in other words, a matter of judgement, which means that technical, cultural and financial aspects are investigated and taken into account. These investigations and decisions made by professionals at the municipalities, as well as their rhetorical and cultural forms, will be the focus of my chapter. The aim of this chapter is to understand the rhetorical and cultural construction of such obstacles and how inaccessibility is reproduced and ignored in Swedish cities even when it is tangible, known and obvious.

Half-measures in the urban environment

In this section I will focus on how professionals responsible for accessibility work at the municipalities deal with so-called ‘easily eliminated obstacles’. This term, coined in a government bill in Sweden in 1999,² refers to obstacles to accessibility and usability in buildings that are open to the public. According to the regulation these obstacles are to be removed if deemed ‘reasonable to remove in view of the benefit of the measure and the conditions at the place’, and as long as the financial implications for removing them are not ‘unreasonably onerous’ (Section 5 BFS 2003: 19). Level differences and lack of contrast markings at entrances are examples of easily eliminated obstacles (BFS 2013: 9). As highlighted in a previous publication based on our fieldwork, a combination of handrails, doorbells and portable ramps are commonly used to deal with staired entrances (Hansson, 2019). But, as an interviewed accessibility officer pointed out, this combination of accessibility measures is not necessarily safe, and it is questionable if it fulfils the requirements of the law:

As if it would be all right to throw out a ramp or rail, it is nothing, it is not safe to use, it cannot be used independently, and because of that we usually do not approve it. But it is, it is the very minimum of what is required to get a building permit, if that is the starting point, although we have a legislation that is quite strict, that says accessibility for everyone, then you should depart from that.

According to the accessibility officer, the described combination of accessibility measures is the very minimum of what is required for a building permit, but it is not in accordance with the intention of the legislation or disability policy. The aim of the policy and regulations is equal and independent access and usability for everyone (Svensson, 2015). The use of a portable ramp is not sufficient since, first, it is not safe and, second, it does not ensure independence or being on equal terms, since someone who cannot climb the stairs will have to ask for help by pressing the doorbell and waiting for the staff to fetch the ramp and help them up. As our fieldwork shows, city centres in Sweden are full of these kinds of half-measures.

There are different ways of understanding and explaining this inertia around accessibility work and stubborn inaccessibility. Previous follow-ups and research on Swedish urban planning has found that the accessibility perspective is not yet fully integrated at the municipal level, and that there is need for more accessibility officers, recourses, routines and knowledge to enforce and supervise the implementation of the regulations in an effective and sufficient way (Hallgrimsdottir et al., 2016; National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, 2018; Zotéeva, 2018). According to international disability scholars, the lack of resources and knowledge is a symptom of the multidimensional oppression of the disabled and constitutes a disablist practice (Imrie, 1996). Able-bodied conceptions and ideology dominate the social-spatial ordering of society and inaccessibility is therefore reproduced as something ‘natural’ and ‘acceptable’ (Kitchin, 1998).

My point of departure in this chapter is that such half-measures in the urban environment can be understood as a hybrid construction at the intersection of conflicting norms, values and interests in society. The requirement of accessibility is a strong norm underpinned by conventions, policy and legislation, but this is also the case for other norms, policies and regulations. As pointed out by Rob Imrie (1996), form and aesthetics tend to be prioritised over functionality and accessibility as long as architecture and design are defined mainly as art. Moreover, as shown by the disability researcher Camilla Nordgren (2009), the norms on full participation and accessibility are also challenged by norms on security and fire safety.

In my analysis, I use the conversation analyst Anita Pomerantz’s (1986) concept of ‘extreme case formulations’ to identify how inaccessibility and exceptions from the accessibility norms and regulations are justified, normalised, and legitimised by different sorts of descriptions and arguments. My argument is that a rhetorical and cultural analysis can be a way to identify resistance to accessibility today, and that not only should policies, legal frameworks and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) be studied, but also the ways of reasoning and legitimising strategies employed by professionals who are formally responsible for enforcing accessibility requirements. Since my informants’ arguments and descriptions depart from how accessibility is usually defined and understood, I will start by discussing the concept of accessibility more generally before I proceed to my analysis of their rhetoric.

Standards, and moments of congruity

Accessibility is a general principle of the CRPD. As stated in the convention, accessibility is a prerequisite for the full enjoyment of human rights for people with disabilities. Without accessibility neither equal opportunities nor independent living nor participation in all aspects of life are possible. Although accessibility cuts through and underpins all parts of the convention the term is not clearly defined, and accessibility is used in different senses in the convention (Lawson, 2018).

The CRPD defines accessibility as an ex ante duty, which means that it is a duty that should be fulfilled in advance to ensure independent access. When used in this sense, accessibility addresses measures that should be designed, planned and implemented before the need for access is raised. Accessibility, then, is about the minimum standards, regulations and guidelines on a group level that should be used in the built environment and in design (CRPD, 2014). Used in this sense accessibility is an objective, evaluable and measurable concept (Iwarsson & Ståhl, 2003).

Since this way of defining and implementing accessibility is based on standards on a group level, an establishment can be defined as accessible even though it is not built for someone outside the standardised norm (Imrie, 1996). Within disability studies and the disability movement, a subjective definition of accessibility is therefore advocated (Imrie, 1996; Iwarsson & Ståhl, 2003), one which is more focused on actors’ practices and experiences than on standards. Accessibility defined from the individual or subjective perspective thus departs from the more everyday way meaning of ‘accessible’, which is often associated with something being approachable, attainable, available or possible to take part in (Iwarsson & Ståhl, 2003).

The individual and subjective definition of accessibility opens up a situational and contextual understanding of accessibility. Used in this sense accessibility is situated and describes a moment of congruity between the individual capacities and environmental demands (Lid & Solvang, 2016). Congruity can be achieved by different means, such as design and environmental changes, but also through technical aids and assistance (Hedvall, 2009: Lid & Solvang, 2016). This situated and contextual understanding of accessibility is actually also found in the CRPD, in the sections in which accessibility addresses different forms of live assistance that should be available to ensure access when it is needed. Used in this sense, accessibility is granted by getting help from others (CRPD, 2014) and not only by an accessible physical environment or design that matches the functional abilities of the individual (Iwarsson & Ståhl, 2003). I argue that this actor-oriented understanding of accessibility within the convention is less known, since UN conventions are typically seen as universal declarations and standardisations.

When accessibility is tied to a specific situation, the meaning of the concept starts to overlap with another concept in the CRPD, that of ‘reasonable accommodation’. Unlike accessibility that is to be fulfilled in advance, reasonable accommodation is required in a given moment and situation, i.e. when it is needed and asked for. Reasonable accommodation, then, is an ex nunc duty, that is an immediate duty that rises in the moment a person requires modifications and adjustments to enjoy the human right of access (Nilsson, 2018). The difference between accessibility and reasonable accommodation is not clear-cut, but the duty to continuously work with accessibility measures on a general level precedes the duty for reasonable accommodation on an individual level (Nilsson, 2018; CRPD, 2014).

Methods and data

During a period of three years (2018–2020), I and two other researchers³ conducted fieldwork in small and large municipalities in Sweden. Our main methods were thematic qualitative interviews and go-alongs (Kusenbach, 2003) with persons with disabilities, but we also studied, for example, reports on so-called easily eliminated obstacles presented to one of the municipalities where we conducted fieldwork. Although we used a number of different methods, all the data emerges from concrete situations and places, so the narratives, experiences, descriptions and arguments we found show everyday dealings with accessibility and inaccessibility. This chapter focuses on the municipal work of enforcing and implementing the rules and regulations on accessibility in general and, specifically, on easily eliminated obstacles.

This chapter is based largely on data collected through interviews I conducted with six professionals who are involve...