Doreen Massey uses the phrase geographies of responsibility to call into conversation the idea that constructions of space are never ethically neutral but instead are echoes of histories, possibilities, and harms that took shape through the building of a space.

Geographies of Responsibility

Price notes that since space can be seen as both intra-active and relational that space is also political-relational. Price pulls on Allison Kafer's political-relational model of disability to note that space is also political because who gets envisioned and defined in/out of space is political.

Price situates space as intra-active and relational, meaning that space is not something that we just inhabit and shape, but also that we are shaped by the spaces we are in through engagement with a space and interaction with that space. 

Space as Intra-active and Relational

Alison Kafer determines that the political/relational model differs from the social model because it includes lived experiences of people with disabilities, in addition to potential medical treatments. 

Political/relational Model 

Price, M. (2024). Crip Spacetime. Duke University Press.

Crip Spacetime

Ashley Shew posits we are all disabled in space, this is because if you were to stick a human into outer-space without a spacesuit or other form of oxygenation, they would quickly be dead, they would be deemed disabled by both their body needing oxygen and the atmosphere outside of earth's orbit not providing it. This interaction between their body and space would render them disabled.

Example of Space and Definition of Disability

Space as Political-Relational

Disability studies is based around the premise that if the built environment was made more accessible and that accessibility was enforced through a legal system, that indequities that create disability would lessen to the possible point of disability disappearing as a form of embodiment. Disability Studies is focused around the social model.

Whereas, Critical Disability Studies is more centered around examining a political-relational model of disability that understands disability as a contestable and transformable category that has been created by larger political and historical forces - a political/relational model of disability, and more pointedly understanding how the category of disability both plays out in individual's lives while also critiquing and examining the system that created the model of disability.

Difference between Critical Disability Studies and Disability Studies

Applied to AI, this perspective reveals how algorithmic systems co-construct disability through classification practices, data labeling, and deployment in real-world contexts such as education, employment, or healthcare. For instance, hiring algorithms that rank candidates not only exclude disabled applicants but also actively reshape what “qualified” means. This model pushes us to see AI not as neutral infrastructure but as a powerful actor in reinforcing or disrupting systemic ableism.

How Political/Relational Model Shapes AI

Contrary to some's belief there is no set list of conditions that count as disabilities in the Americans with Disabilities Act, rather disability is defined having, having a history of, or being regarded as having an impairment that inhibits one or more major life activities. Part of the reasoning for this way of defining disability was being of the politics around HIV/AIDS in the late 1980s and early 1990s. HIV/AIDS was still highly stigmatized in the late 1980s and early 1990s because of its association with the LGBTQ+ community, and abandonment of individuals who were dying during the HIV/AIDS epidemic by President Ronald Reagan. This lead to a large political debate during the passage of the ADA of whether HIV/AIDS should be included as a disability in the legislation. Queerphobic, homophobic and transphobic legislators who did not want to appear to their constituents to be supporting rights for the LGBTQ+ community by including HIV/AIDS as a disability in the ADA helped shape a definition of disability that did not outline certain conditions to make the inclusion of folks with HIV/AIDS less evident. 

Learn Before

Related

Learn After