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Illegible Injury: Technological Abuse and the Disabled Bodymind

Patrus, Ryann Lynn
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1629677075651928

Abstract Details

2021, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Comparative Studies.
This exploration of technology, violence, and the disabled bodymind, closely examines cases that demonstrate the ways that assistive technology can be used to exact harm. While assistive technology can be both beneficial and crucial, the cases discussed herein represent technology functioning as a form of violence or constraint. This study illumines how this violence is made invisible through ableism and a lack of understanding of the material experiences of disabled bodyminds in relation to technology, the body, “humanness,” human-material relationality, and domination. This project argues that Disability-Specific Abuse incorporates the weaponization of assistive technology to maim, entrap, wound, coerce, and/or terrorize a disabled bodymind into submission. This investigation highlights both the vitality of the relationality between bodyminds and assistive technology and the potential for harm when those technologies are weaponized by an outside actor. This project began as my undergraduate senior thesis. When conducting research in the field of psychology, I was struck by an absence of discussion around disability outside of what I found to be a very pathologizing lens. One of the most prevalent issues covered in the literature was abuse (especially against disabled women). There were few mentions of something called Disability-Specific Abuse that discussed the use of assistive technology to harm. As an assistive technology user, I had a visceral response to the idea that someone might exploit the complex relationship between AT user and device. And as someone who has interdepended on multiple forms of AT (both stigmatized and normative) there was an immediate recognition of the anxiety that comes with using a technological tool to navigate one’s daily life and the potential for that device to fail, break down, or be made unusable (not to mention be used as a weapon). For those of us who have used non-stigmatized forms of AT like cell phones, we can probably relate to the feeling of frustration when without our device to make calls or pull up a google search. For those of us who use stigmatized AT, that feeling frustration and loss can be compounded because these are tools that we utilize to navigate and access the world. The fear that we cannot reliably interdepend on those tools or that if they break the cost of replacing them will be insurmountable, has a profound psychic impact. It is this reaction and recognition that propelled my interest in this topic and all the complicated facets of technological abuse that are experienced by disabled bodyminds. In discussions of abuse using assistive technology within the allied health fields, there is little interrogation of the complex relationship between AT users and their devices. Instead, the literature has linked the interdependence of disabled bodyminds on assistive technology and care providers as the cause of abuse and has suggested that if disabled bodyminds were less “dependent” they might not experience such high rates of abuse. This framing does not consider disability studies principles like interdependence, collective care, and animated relationality between bodymind and devices and I saw this as an opening for investigation. This project has moved away from an initial focus on just one instance of technological violence and into the many ways that assistive technology is weaponized. While this project starts and ends with individual examples of violence it is also inextricably tied to systems of oppression at play in each case. I shift focus between the individual impact of examples of abuse, the community experience of harm during crisis, and the systems of oppression that make invisible the bodyminds at the center of these stories. The goal of this project was to speak to the concerns of Crip and disability justice communities. As a result, the final chapter changed drastically to take up current crises. What started as a single power blackout story, has expanded to include several crises of the past year and half including the COVID-19 pandemic. This dissertation was shaped by the moment in which it was written. There were constraints of the pandemic that shifted content, but in many ways, this moment enriched the project as the Crip and disability justice community spoke back to the devaluation of their lives.
Maurice Stevens (Advisor)
Margaret Price (Committee Member)
Amy Shuman (Committee Member)
148 p.
Comparative; Technology
Disability, Assistive Technology, Violence

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Patrus, R. L. (2021). Illegible Injury: Technological Abuse and the Disabled Bodymind [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1629677075651928

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Patrus, Ryann. Illegible Injury: Technological Abuse and the Disabled Bodymind. 2021. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1629677075651928.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Patrus, Ryann. "Illegible Injury: Technological Abuse and the Disabled Bodymind." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1629677075651928

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1629677075651928
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.