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Aimi Hamraie

Vanderbilt University, Medicine, Health and Society, Faculty Member

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//aimihamraie.wordpress.com//
Assistant professor of Medicine, Health, & Society at Vanderbilt University.
Faculty Fellow, Public Scholars Program, Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy (2015-2016).
Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities Faculty Fellow (2014-2015).

I earned my doctorate at Emory University in the Department of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, and held fellowships with the Social Science Research Council and the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History (Smithsonian Institution).

Please visit my professional blog for more information:
https://aimihamraie.wordpress.com/

Areas of specialization:
-Critical Disability Studies
-Feminist Technoscience Studies
-History and philosophy of science and technology
-Design and architecture

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University of California, San Diego

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Papers by Aimi Hamraie

ROUNDTABLE INTRODUCTION Crip Technoscience Activism, Artistry, and Social Praxis

Catalyst, 2019

Introduction to "Crip Technoscience" issue

by Aimi Hamraie, Mara Mills, and David Serlin

Catalyst 5 (1), 2019

Mapping Access: Digital Humanities, Disability Justice, and Sociospatial Practice

The difficult intersectional, interdisciplinary work to be done includes within one frame the spa... more

Inclusive Design: Cultivating Accountability Toward the Intersections of Race, Aging, and Disability

Universal Design and the Problem of “Post-Disability” Ideology

Although Universal Design gains popularity as a common sense strategy for crafting built environm... more Although Universal Design gains popularity as a common sense strategy for crafting built environments for all users, accessibility for disabled people remains a marginal area of inquiry within design practice and theory. This article argues that the tension between accessibility and Universal Design stems from inadequate critical and historical attention to the concept of disability as it relates to discourses of “good design.” This article draws upon critical disability theory to reveal the persistence of “post-disability” narratives and “ideologies of ability” from the eugenics era into the present theory and practice of Universal Design.

Review of Titchkosky, <em>The Question of Access</em>

Disability Studies Quarterly, 2013

<I>Universal Design as a Rehabilitation Strategy: Design for the Ages</I>, by Jon Sanford<BR> <I>Universal Design: Creating Inclusive Environments</I>, by Edward Steinfeld and Jordana Maisel

Design and Culture, 2013

Historical Epistemology as Disability Studies Methodology: From the Models Framework to Foucault’s Archaeology of Cure

In this article, I argue for historical epistemology as a methodology for critical disability stu... more In this article, I argue for historical epistemology as a methodology for critical disability studies (DS) by examining Foucault’s archaeology of cure in History of Madness. Although the moral, medical, and social models of disability frame disability history as an advancement upon moral and medical authority and a replacement of it by sociopolitical knowledge, I argue that the more comprehensive frame in which these models circulate—the “models framework”—requires the more nuanced approach that historical epistemology offers. In particular, the models framework requires greater use of epistemology as an analytical tool for understanding the historical construction of disability. Thus, I turn to Foucault’s History of Madness in order to both excavate one particular archaeological strand in the text—the archaeology of cure—and to demonstrate how this narrative disrupts some of the key assumptions of the models framework, challenging DS to consider the epistemological force of non-medical fields of knowledge for framing disability and procedures for its cure and elimination. I conclude by arguing that DS must develop historical epistemological methodologies that are sensitive to the complex overlays of moral, medical, and social knowledge, as well as attend to the social construction of scientific and biomedical knowledge itself.

Cripping Feminist Technoscience

Designing Collective Access: a feminist disability theory of Universal Design

Universal Design Research as a New Materialist Practice

Proximate and Peripheral: Ableist Discourses of Space and Vulnerability Surrounding the UNCRPD

The Politics of Place and Space, Ed. Clewer, Elsey, & Certoma, Oct 2012

Book Reviews by Aimi Hamraie

Review of Titchkosky, The Question of Access

Review of Universal Design as a Rehabilitation Strategy (Sanford) and Universal Design: Creating Inclusive Environments (Steinfeld & Maisel)

Design & Culture, Apr 2013

Talks by Aimi Hamraie

Access-Knowledge: Disability, Universal Design, and the Politics of Knowing-Making

Outline of a talk delivered on October 5, 2016 at Ohio State University

Conference Presentations by Aimi Hamraie

Mapping Access: Disability, Space, and Participatory World-Building

Outline of plenary presentation to Residential College Symposium

Books by Aimi Hamraie

Crip Technoscience, from Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability

In the late 1960s, disability activists and their allies drove around Berkeley, California, under... more In the late 1960s, disability activists and their allies drove around Berkeley, California, under dark of night, smashing sidewalks with sledgehammers and pouring new curb cuts with bags of cement or asphalt or so the rumor goes. 1 While those allegedly involved describe the circumstances surrounding activist curb cuts as far more mundane, heroic stories about sledgehammer-wielding activists have taken shape as the primal scenes of U.S. disability activism, securing the movement's place within the broader memory of civil rights-era direct action and portraying disability as a social and cultural rather than medical category (Figure .1). These stories have, in turn, shaped the national narrative about disability rights and U.S. citizenship. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., for instance, houses in its permanent collections a concrete fragment from an activist-made curb cut in Denver, Colorado, from 1978 (Figure .2). At their core, artifacts and narratives of activist curb-cutting express the central ideas of the 1960s and '70s independent living movement, through which disabled people rejected their status as objects of knowledge for rehabilitation professionals and architects, asserting disability as a kind of expert knowledge and critical making. 2 When disabled people enact politics, these narratives suggest, they also design and build new worlds. "The social life of city sidewalks," wrote Jane Jacobs in 1961, "is precisely that they are public. " 3 The curb cut is often understood as a post-World War II technology of barrier-free design, a design feature enabling access to the public sidewalk. Accordingly, the curb cut has also served as a storytelling device in liberal narratives of inclusion and good design. In 1946 lawyer Jack H. Fisher wrote to the mayor of Kalamazoo, Michigan, arguing that curb cuts and ramps "were instrumental in allowing disabled veterans, disabled non-veterans, aged and infirm persons and mothers with baby carriages more freedom of movement. " 4 Productive disabled citizenship

Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability

Forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press. Now available for pre-order on Amazon.

ROUNDTABLE INTRODUCTION Crip Technoscience Activism, Artistry, and Social Praxis

Catalyst, 2019

Introduction to "Crip Technoscience" issue

by Aimi Hamraie, Mara Mills, and David Serlin

Catalyst 5 (1), 2019

Mapping Access: Digital Humanities, Disability Justice, and Sociospatial Practice

The difficult intersectional, interdisciplinary work to be done includes within one frame the spa... more

Inclusive Design: Cultivating Accountability Toward the Intersections of Race, Aging, and Disability

Universal Design and the Problem of “Post-Disability” Ideology

Although Universal Design gains popularity as a common sense strategy for crafting built environm... more Although Universal Design gains popularity as a common sense strategy for crafting built environments for all users, accessibility for disabled people remains a marginal area of inquiry within design practice and theory. This article argues that the tension between accessibility and Universal Design stems from inadequate critical and historical attention to the concept of disability as it relates to discourses of “good design.” This article draws upon critical disability theory to reveal the persistence of “post-disability” narratives and “ideologies of ability” from the eugenics era into the present theory and practice of Universal Design.

Review of Titchkosky, <em>The Question of Access</em>

Disability Studies Quarterly, 2013

<I>Universal Design as a Rehabilitation Strategy: Design for the Ages</I>, by Jon Sanford<BR> <I>Universal Design: Creating Inclusive Environments</I>, by Edward Steinfeld and Jordana Maisel

Design and Culture, 2013

Historical Epistemology as Disability Studies Methodology: From the Models Framework to Foucault’s Archaeology of Cure

In this article, I argue for historical epistemology as a methodology for critical disability stu... more In this article, I argue for historical epistemology as a methodology for critical disability studies (DS) by examining Foucault’s archaeology of cure in History of Madness. Although the moral, medical, and social models of disability frame disability history as an advancement upon moral and medical authority and a replacement of it by sociopolitical knowledge, I argue that the more comprehensive frame in which these models circulate—the “models framework”—requires the more nuanced approach that historical epistemology offers. In particular, the models framework requires greater use of epistemology as an analytical tool for understanding the historical construction of disability. Thus, I turn to Foucault’s History of Madness in order to both excavate one particular archaeological strand in the text—the archaeology of cure—and to demonstrate how this narrative disrupts some of the key assumptions of the models framework, challenging DS to consider the epistemological force of non-medical fields of knowledge for framing disability and procedures for its cure and elimination. I conclude by arguing that DS must develop historical epistemological methodologies that are sensitive to the complex overlays of moral, medical, and social knowledge, as well as attend to the social construction of scientific and biomedical knowledge itself.

Cripping Feminist Technoscience

Designing Collective Access: a feminist disability theory of Universal Design

Universal Design Research as a New Materialist Practice

Proximate and Peripheral: Ableist Discourses of Space and Vulnerability Surrounding the UNCRPD

The Politics of Place and Space, Ed. Clewer, Elsey, & Certoma, Oct 2012

Review of Titchkosky, The Question of Access

Review of Universal Design as a Rehabilitation Strategy (Sanford) and Universal Design: Creating Inclusive Environments (Steinfeld & Maisel)

Design & Culture, Apr 2013

Access-Knowledge: Disability, Universal Design, and the Politics of Knowing-Making

Outline of a talk delivered on October 5, 2016 at Ohio State University

Mapping Access: Disability, Space, and Participatory World-Building

Outline of plenary presentation to Residential College Symposium

Crip Technoscience, from Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability

In the late 1960s, disability activists and their allies drove around Berkeley, California, under... more In the late 1960s, disability activists and their allies drove around Berkeley, California, under dark of night, smashing sidewalks with sledgehammers and pouring new curb cuts with bags of cement or asphalt or so the rumor goes. 1 While those allegedly involved describe the circumstances surrounding activist curb cuts as far more mundane, heroic stories about sledgehammer-wielding activists have taken shape as the primal scenes of U.S. disability activism, securing the movement's place within the broader memory of civil rights-era direct action and portraying disability as a social and cultural rather than medical category (Figure .1). These stories have, in turn, shaped the national narrative about disability rights and U.S. citizenship. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., for instance, houses in its permanent collections a concrete fragment from an activist-made curb cut in Denver, Colorado, from 1978 (Figure .2). At their core, artifacts and narratives of activist curb-cutting express the central ideas of the 1960s and '70s independent living movement, through which disabled people rejected their status as objects of knowledge for rehabilitation professionals and architects, asserting disability as a kind of expert knowledge and critical making. 2 When disabled people enact politics, these narratives suggest, they also design and build new worlds. "The social life of city sidewalks," wrote Jane Jacobs in 1961, "is precisely that they are public. " 3 The curb cut is often understood as a post-World War II technology of barrier-free design, a design feature enabling access to the public sidewalk. Accordingly, the curb cut has also served as a storytelling device in liberal narratives of inclusion and good design. In 1946 lawyer Jack H. Fisher wrote to the mayor of Kalamazoo, Michigan, arguing that curb cuts and ramps "were instrumental in allowing disabled veterans, disabled non-veterans, aged and infirm persons and mothers with baby carriages more freedom of movement. " 4 Productive disabled citizenship

Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability

Forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press. Now available for pre-order on Amazon.