Movement of people with visual impairments: the influence of technologies
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Citation | |
| Description | This contribution is based on critical media and communica¬tion geography and shows how the use of media technolo¬gies shapes movement through urban space for people with visual impairments. It adopts non-representational theory perspective that is not uncommon for media geographies, as well as disability geographies. Ideas presented here are based on semi-structured and go-along interviews with peo¬ple with visual impairments. They present that the preparation of itineraries of routes on a computer (usually online) and the usage of smartphone GPS spatial navigation applications have crucial importance for movement through urban space. The first of these two, although itself a representation of space, is more in line with the non-representational movement advance of the body with visual impairments, with its move¬ment space. The second of these is based on the representa¬tion of space, which is technologically captured at each point in time in its synchronous whole, not in a route-like becoming. Spatial navigation, due to its origin in technological ocularcen¬trism, does not operate with the occurrence of the route step by step, event by event, with the construction of the haptic living space fragment by fragment, as the route itinerary re¬fers to. This can bring forth affects that reproduce ableism. |