An example of access friction between individuals can be if you have an individual with migraines caused by bright lights and an individual who is deaf and needs to be able to see an interpreter, in this case there is no set prescription for how to create the most access in this scenario but we can imagine ways to create access - for instance having lights on the interpreter that the individual with migraines is shielded from - but those ways of creating are centered around communication and discussion of alternatives between the two disabled people.

Examples of Access Friction Between Individuals

Charles Moran used the phrase access as an A-word to describe how access can be easy to name and think about but difficult to always enact in practice. 

Access as an A-word

Access friction was originally termed Liz Jackson to explain the friction that can happen between disabled people and environments and spaces that are not built for them. Access friction goes beyond just describing an environment as inaccessible because it can also include when individuals' access needs have not been considered or are not met in spaces that are otherwise deemed as accessible. Access friction has also evolved to include what is more colloquially known as conflicting access needs, or the idea that you can have situations where meeting the access needs of one individual or a group of individuals impedes access for another individual or group of individuals.

Price notes that in thinking about access the research team used the theory of access as process.Titchkosky theorizes access as procress as the idea that access is not a set goal that we meet but instead an unfolding process that happens between specific bodyminds and in specific places and depends on the interaction between bodies. 


Access as a Process

Jackson, Liz. (2019, June 7) Honoring the Friction of Disability. AIGAdesign, Pasadena, CA, USA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZhiu-jGbdE.

Honoring the Friction of Disability

Access Friction

Price offers us the following example to look at how access was thought about in interviews for DAS. One participant in Spring 2013 indicated that Skype would work for the interview; however, the participant's internet connection was not stable, leading Price and the participant to use the chat box to communicate and conclude that the interview needed to be rescheduled. Price asked the participant if an in-person interview would be preferred. In this case, while the participant indicated Skype would be accessible it was not and access is emerging or becoming in this case as it is renegotiated based on the realities of unstable internet connection. 

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