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Aimi Hamraie (they/them) is Associate Professor of Medicine, Health, & Society and American Studies at Vanderbilt University, and director of the Critical Design Lab. Trained as a feminist scholar, Hamraie's interdisciplinary research spans critical disability studies, science and technology studies, critical design and urbanism, critical race theory, and the environmental humanities. They are author of Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability and host of the Contra* podcast on disability and design. https://drive.google.com/file/d/16wtxAOFZcBC0tPZTPA7OUW5OqGtoygeM/view?usp=sharing (Transcript (PDF)) https://share.descript.com/view/rhnBrGukT0V (Transcript (Interactive))
Happy Halloween! This one is pretty appropriately horrifying, particularly if you're concerned about the education outcomes of Black and Brown students. But, hey, what else is new? We dive into the crisis happening across education as the pandemic continues to disproportionately diminish outcomes and opportunities for students of color. And it's, like, real bad. From there we spend a bit of time thinking through the recent Docent drama at the Art Institutes of Chicago. Honestly, if this isn't an argument for the importance of cross-racial solidarity, we're running out of time to figure out what is. We also touch on M.I.T. and the project of continually making space for scientific racism under the guise of intellectual diversity. It's...all...so...tiring. Stick it out to the end for some really great book recs and thoughts on decompressing. And truly, stay safe out there. Further Reading: Failing Grades, Stalled Learning, LA Students 'need help now', Times Analysis Shows, LA Times Art Institute of Chicago Ends a Docent Program, and Sets Off a Backlash, NY Times M.I.T.'s Choice of Lecturer Ignited Criticism. So Did Its Decision to Cancel. NY Times What We're Reading: Aimi Hamraie, Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability Bryant Terry, Black Food
How has the concept of Universal Design and its application to architectural practice changed over the years? Who is left out of design practices that are meant for “everyone”? What if the design industry actually employed the people with disabilities who have been designing adaptable and accessible products for decades? Episode 67 of the Imagine Otherwise podcast is the second in a three-part miniseries that was recorded live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at a recent gathering of interdisciplinary cultural studies scholars. The three authors featured in this miniseries—Sami Schalk, Aimi Hamraie, and Heath Fogg Davis—have recently published cultural studies books that have made big splashes beyond the academy in the areas of speculative fiction, fan cultures, urban planning and design, law, and public policy. These authors’ books show how the intersections of disability, race, gender, and sexuality have shaped everything from sci-fi/fantasy novels to police violence, curb cut activism, urban architecture, and the design of public restrooms. In this episode, host Cathy Hannabach talks with professor and designer Aimi Hamraie about their new book Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability. Transcript and show notes: http://ideasonfire.net/podcast/67-aimi-hamraie/
The Americans with Disability Act passed in 1990, but it was just one moment in ongoing efforts to craft the meaning and practice of “good design” that put people with disabilities at the center. In their new book, Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), Aimi Hamraie takes a “sledgehammer to history” in the spirit of one guerrilla activist group that they track in the archives—among many other people, objects, and historical contexts. Hamraie focuses on work around “access-knowledge”—that is, the forms of expertise that were considered legitimate ways of knowing and responding to disability through design. What has counted as legitimate access-knowledge, Hamraie argues, indicates designers’ goals: Was the aim of design to make productive workers, liberal consumers, or structures that materialized a commitment to spacial belonging? Who were the imagined users and how could new political priorities materialize in worlds already built? Answers to these questions made—and continue to remake—our material world and its frictions. Hamraie brings their training in feminist epistemology to never-before-accessed archival materials, along with an array of historical images and documents. The result is a persuasive, beautiful, and intrepidly researched book. Building Access torques received wisdom in disability studies, history of science, and architectural design, and models how to attend to research, writing, and publishing as a material practice. Hamraie is Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Medicine, Health & Society, and Director of Vanderbilt’s Critical Design Lab. This interview was a collective effort among Vanderbilt faculty and graduate students in the course New Approaches to STS. For more information about using NBN interviews as part of pedagogical practice, please email Laura Stark or see the essay “Can New Media Save the Book?” in Contexts (2015). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Americans with Disability Act passed in 1990, but it was just one moment in ongoing efforts to craft the meaning and practice of “good design” that put people with disabilities at the center. In their new book, Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), Aimi Hamraie takes a “sledgehammer to history” in the spirit of one guerrilla activist group that they track in the archives—among many other people, objects, and historical contexts. Hamraie focuses on work around “access-knowledge”—that is, the forms of expertise that were considered legitimate ways of knowing and responding to disability through design. What has counted as legitimate access-knowledge, Hamraie argues, indicates designers’ goals: Was the aim of design to make productive workers, liberal consumers, or structures that materialized a commitment to spacial belonging? Who were the imagined users and how could new political priorities materialize in worlds already built? Answers to these questions made—and continue to remake—our material world and its frictions. Hamraie brings their training in feminist epistemology to never-before-accessed archival materials, along with an array of historical images and documents. The result is a persuasive, beautiful, and intrepidly researched book. Building Access torques received wisdom in disability studies, history of science, and architectural design, and models how to attend to research, writing, and publishing as a material practice. Hamraie is Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Medicine, Health & Society, and Director of Vanderbilt’s Critical Design Lab. This interview was a collective effort among Vanderbilt faculty and graduate students in the course New Approaches to STS. For more information about using NBN interviews as part of pedagogical practice, please email Laura Stark or see the essay “Can New Media Save the Book?” in Contexts (2015). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Americans with Disability Act passed in 1990, but it was just one moment in ongoing efforts to craft the meaning and practice of “good design” that put people with disabilities at the center. In their new book, Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), Aimi Hamraie takes a “sledgehammer to history” in the spirit of one guerrilla activist group that they track in the archives—among many other people, objects, and historical contexts. Hamraie focuses on work around “access-knowledge”—that is, the forms of expertise that were considered legitimate ways of knowing and responding to disability through design. What has counted as legitimate access-knowledge, Hamraie argues, indicates designers’ goals: Was the aim of design to make productive workers, liberal consumers, or structures that materialized a commitment to spacial belonging? Who were the imagined users and how could new political priorities materialize in worlds already built? Answers to these questions made—and continue to remake—our material world and its frictions. Hamraie brings their training in feminist epistemology to never-before-accessed archival materials, along with an array of historical images and documents. The result is a persuasive, beautiful, and intrepidly researched book. Building Access torques received wisdom in disability studies, history of science, and architectural design, and models how to attend to research, writing, and publishing as a material practice. Hamraie is Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Medicine, Health & Society, and Director of Vanderbilt’s Critical Design Lab. This interview was a collective effort among Vanderbilt faculty and graduate students in the course New Approaches to STS. For more information about using NBN interviews as part of pedagogical practice, please email Laura Stark or see the essay “Can New Media Save the Book?” in Contexts (2015). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Americans with Disability Act passed in 1990, but it was just one moment in ongoing efforts to craft the meaning and practice of “good design” that put people with disabilities at the center. In their new book, Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), Aimi Hamraie takes a “sledgehammer to history” in the spirit of one guerrilla activist group that they track in the archives—among many other people, objects, and historical contexts. Hamraie focuses on work around “access-knowledge”—that is, the forms of expertise that were considered legitimate ways of knowing and responding to disability through design. What has counted as legitimate access-knowledge, Hamraie argues, indicates designers’ goals: Was the aim of design to make productive workers, liberal consumers, or structures that materialized a commitment to spacial belonging? Who were the imagined users and how could new political priorities materialize in worlds already built? Answers to these questions made—and continue to remake—our material world and its frictions. Hamraie brings their training in feminist epistemology to never-before-accessed archival materials, along with an array of historical images and documents. The result is a persuasive, beautiful, and intrepidly researched book. Building Access torques received wisdom in disability studies, history of science, and architectural design, and models how to attend to research, writing, and publishing as a material practice. Hamraie is Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Medicine, Health & Society, and Director of Vanderbilt’s Critical Design Lab. This interview was a collective effort among Vanderbilt faculty and graduate students in the course New Approaches to STS. For more information about using NBN interviews as part of pedagogical practice, please email Laura Stark or see the essay “Can New Media Save the Book?” in Contexts (2015). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Americans with Disability Act passed in 1990, but it was just one moment in ongoing efforts to craft the meaning and practice of “good design” that put people with disabilities at the center. In their new book, Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), Aimi Hamraie takes a “sledgehammer to history” in the spirit of one guerrilla activist group that they track in the archives—among many other people, objects, and historical contexts. Hamraie focuses on work around “access-knowledge”—that is, the forms of expertise that were considered legitimate ways of knowing and responding to disability through design. What has counted as legitimate access-knowledge, Hamraie argues, indicates designers’ goals: Was the aim of design to make productive workers, liberal consumers, or structures that materialized a commitment to spacial belonging? Who were the imagined users and how could new political priorities materialize in worlds already built? Answers to these questions made—and continue to remake—our material world and its frictions. Hamraie brings their training in feminist epistemology to never-before-accessed archival materials, along with an array of historical images and documents. The result is a persuasive, beautiful, and intrepidly researched book. Building Access torques received wisdom in disability studies, history of science, and architectural design, and models how to attend to research, writing, and publishing as a material practice. Hamraie is Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Medicine, Health & Society, and Director of Vanderbilt’s Critical Design Lab. This interview was a collective effort among Vanderbilt faculty and graduate students in the course New Approaches to STS. For more information about using NBN interviews as part of pedagogical practice, please email Laura Stark or see the essay “Can New Media Save the Book?” in Contexts (2015). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Americans with Disability Act passed in 1990, but it was just one moment in ongoing efforts to craft the meaning and practice of “good design” that put people with disabilities at the center. In their new book, Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), Aimi Hamraie takes a “sledgehammer to history” in the spirit of one guerrilla activist group that they track in the archives—among many other people, objects, and historical contexts. Hamraie focuses on work around “access-knowledge”—that is, the forms of expertise that were considered legitimate ways of knowing and responding to disability through design. What has counted as legitimate access-knowledge, Hamraie argues, indicates designers' goals: Was the aim of design to make productive workers, liberal consumers, or structures that materialized a commitment to spacial belonging? Who were the imagined users and how could new political priorities materialize in worlds already built? Answers to these questions made—and continue to remake—our material world and its frictions. Hamraie brings their training in feminist epistemology to never-before-accessed archival materials, along with an array of historical images and documents. The result is a persuasive, beautiful, and intrepidly researched book. Building Access torques received wisdom in disability studies, history of science, and architectural design, and models how to attend to research, writing, and publishing as a material practice. Hamraie is Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University's Center for Medicine, Health & Society, and Director of Vanderbilt's Critical Design Lab. This interview was a collective effort among Vanderbilt faculty and graduate students in the course New Approaches to STS. For more information about using NBN interviews as part of pedagogical practice, please email Laura Stark or see the essay “Can New Media Save the Book?” in Contexts (2015). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Americans with Disability Act passed in 1990, but it was just one moment in ongoing efforts to craft the meaning and practice of “good design” that put people with disabilities at the center. In their new book, Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), Aimi Hamraie takes a “sledgehammer to history” in the spirit of one guerrilla activist group that they track in the archives—among many other people, objects, and historical contexts. Hamraie focuses on work around “access-knowledge”—that is, the forms of expertise that were considered legitimate ways of knowing and responding to disability through design. What has counted as legitimate access-knowledge, Hamraie argues, indicates designers' goals: Was the aim of design to make productive workers, liberal consumers, or structures that materialized a commitment to spacial belonging? Who were the imagined users and how could new political priorities materialize in worlds already built? Answers to these questions made—and continue to remake—our material world and its frictions. Hamraie brings their training in feminist epistemology to never-before-accessed archival materials, along with an array of historical images and documents. The result is a persuasive, beautiful, and intrepidly researched book. Building Access torques received wisdom in disability studies, history of science, and architectural design, and models how to attend to research, writing, and publishing as a material practice. Hamraie is Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University's Center for Medicine, Health & Society, and Director of Vanderbilt's Critical Design Lab. This interview was a collective effort among Vanderbilt faculty and graduate students in the course New Approaches to STS. For more information about using NBN interviews as part of pedagogical practice, please email Laura Stark or see the essay “Can New Media Save the Book?” in Contexts (2015). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices