Accessing degrowth - Innovating design

Degrowth, a social imaginary and theory of ecological economics, argues for the limitation of material throughput in the Global North to prevent environmental devastation and social injustice (Kallis, 2018). Researchers in the field argue that these complex problems are created by excessive production, consumption and material accumulation (Hickel, 2021).

However, discussions of disability theory and healthcare studies are currently missing from degrowth scholarship. My master's dissertation highlighted this absence. Through literature review and semi-structured interviews, I found tensions between degrowth and disability theory situated within technology, healthcare and public infrastructure; which provides the conceptual, empirical and methodological framework of my doctoral research project.

My master's research also highlighted that degrowth offers socially and environmentally positive outcomes and that tensions between disability studies and degrowth may be minimised through intersections of design, technoscience and disability studies outlined in the Crip Technoscience Manifesto (Hamraie and Fritsch, 2019). Hamraie and Fritsch balance technoscience's importance for disabled communities and its situatedness in oppressive systems such as the military industrial complex and extractivism.

This dichotomy is centred in this PhD project to ensure that disabled experiences and environmental protection are balanced, with design being used to subvert the physically/psychologically ineffective and socio-ecologically destructive approaches currently utilised within assistive technology and healthcare. Defined as the equipment, services and software used by disabled, elderly and chronically ill people, assistive technology is primarily created by non-disabled designers within large corporations that rarely integrate disabled expertise and priorities.

Building upon my previous research, I will study ad-hoc design used by disabled people. Described by Hamraie and Fritsch (2019) as 'world-dismantling and building', this improvised design practice is used by disabled people to reconfigure their environment and create tailored solutions to inaccessible spaces, objects, communities and communications.

Through this, disabled people address the ineffectiveness of some assistive technology, public spaces and healthcare. This analysis will be strengthened by research into disability studies, such as decolonial disability studies (Puar 2017) and through investigating other models of healthcare, such as autonomous healthcare used by the Zapatistas in Mexico (Livingston and Capps, 2010).

I will work with disabled people, recruiting non-diagnostically, to ascertain varied perspectives on public infrastructure, assistive technology and healthcare, while reviewing participant observations of individual ad-hoc design practices. The interviews and workshops will engage a mixed-methodological approach; combining interdependent disability studies methodology (Price and Kerschbaum, 2016), critical autoethnography (Tilley-Lubbs, G.A, 2016) and co-design (Howard, J., et al., 2022).

I will analyse data using grounded theory, run co-design workshops and discuss findings with degrowth researchers. I will also accumulate collected data on a website hosted by the UoE to ensure public access.

Through these steps, I intend to ascertain what the design, production and dissemination of assistive technology and healthcare could look like for disabled people in the degrowth imaginary, contributing vital research to degrowth that prioritises disabled communities. For design it offers innovative perspectives centring disabled expertise and socio-ecological responsibility within assistive technology and healthcare.

This research presents alternative means of social and medical support that can be utilised by disabled people, communities and policymakers in fields of health, equality, technology and the environment to improve upon current sub-par frameworks.