Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement
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One of BookRiot's Ten Best Disability Books of the Year
Shortlisted for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards
"Wonderfully lucid." —Andrew Leland, New York Times Book Review
A manifesto exploding what we think we know about disability, and arguing that disabled people are the real experts when it comes to technology and disability.
When bioethicist and professor Ashley Shew became a self-described "hard-of-hearing chemobrained amputee with Crohn's disease and tinnitus," there was no returning to "normal." Suddenly well-meaning people called her an "inspiration" while grocery shopping or viewed her as a needy recipient of technological wizardry. Most disabled people don't want what the abled assume they want—nor are they generally asked. Almost everyone will experience disability at some point in their lives, yet the abled persistently frame disability as an individual's problem rather than a social one.
In a warm, feisty voice and vibrant prose, Shew shows how we can create better narratives and more accessible futures by drawing from the insights of the cross-disability community. To forge a more equitable world, Shew argues that we must eliminate "technoableism"—the harmful belief that technology is a "solution" for disability; that the disabled simply await being "fixed" by technological wizardry; that making society more accessible and equitable is somehow a lesser priority.
This badly needed introduction to disability expertise considers mobility devices, medical infrastructure, neurodivergence, and the crucial relationship between disability and race. The future, Shew points out, is surely disabled—whether through changing climate, new diseases, or even through space travel. It's time we looked closely at how we all think about disability technologies and learn to envision disabilities not as liabilities, but as skill sets enabling all of us to navigate a challenging world.
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Ashley Shew. (2023). Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement. W. W. Norton & Company.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Ashley Shew. 2023. Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement. W. W. Norton & Company.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Ashley Shew, Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement. W. W. Norton & Company, 2023.
MLA Citation (style guide)Ashley Shew. Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement. W. W. Norton & Company, 2023.
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One of BookRiot's Ten Best Disability Books of the Year
Shortlisted for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards
"Wonderfully lucid." —Andrew Leland, New York Times Book Review
A manifesto exploding what we think we know about disability, and arguing that disabled people are the real experts when it comes to technology and disability.When bioethicist and professor Ashley Shew became a self-described "hard-of-hearing chemobrained amputee with Crohn's disease and tinnitus," there was no returning to "normal." Suddenly well-meaning people called her an "inspiration" while grocery shopping or viewed her as a needy recipient of technological wizardry. Most disabled people don't want what the abled assume they want—nor are they generally asked. Almost everyone will experience disability at some point in their lives, yet the abled persistently frame disability as an individual's problem rather than a social one.
In a warm, feisty voice and vibrant prose, Shew shows how we can create better narratives and more accessible futures by drawing from the insights of the cross-disability community. To forge a more equitable world, Shew argues that we must eliminate "technoableism"—the harmful belief that technology is a "solution" for disability; that the disabled simply await being "fixed" by technological wizardry; that making society more accessible and equitable is somehow a lesser priority.
This badly needed introduction to disability expertise considers mobility devices, medical infrastructure, neurodivergence, and the crucial relationship between disability and race. The future, Shew points out, is surely disabled—whether through changing climate, new diseases, or even through space travel. It's time we looked closely at how we all think about disability technologies and learn to envision disabilities not as liabilities, but as skill sets enabling all of us to navigate a challenging world.
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April 1, 2023
From bioethicist and professor Shew, a self-described "hard-of-hearing chemobrained amputee with Crohn's disease and tinnitus," Against Technoableism argues that most people with disabilities don't want what abled people think they want, instead seeking social and embracing, rather than technological and individual, solutions to issues they face. Prepub Alert.
Copyright 2023 Library Journal
Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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July 24, 2023
Disability activist Shew (Animal Constructions and Technological Knowledge) asks people to reconsider the assumption that disability is a problem that needs to be solved by technology in this amusing and persuasive polemic. Shew describes technoableism, a word she coined, as a “belief... that considers the elimination of disability a good thing, something we should strive for”—and argues that the mindset is responsible for flawed, ineffective, and inessential technology that most disabled people don’t want or can’t use. For example, cochlear implants are widely portrayed as “curing” deafness in infants, but it often takes years for children using them to learn how to communicate, and they don’t always work, need frequent maintenance, and remove all natural hearing; activists in the Deaf community have pushed back against the medical community’s presumption that Deaf children, by default, require this flawed technology. Rather than assuming disability “is a problem that resides within individual disabled people,” Shew prefers a social model of disability, wherein the problems caused by disability are viewed a structural issue. Questioning whether anyone needs to be fixed at all, Shew posits an alternative way of viewing the world—one where people with disabilities are considered not just the experts on their own bodies but as experts on uncertainty and injustice, who are uniquely qualified to be architects of a more equal future. “We should always be planning with disability in mind,” she writes, “because disability is an inherent part of having squishy meat bodies.” Equally fierce and funny, this will galvanize readers to demand genuine equity for people with disabilities.
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August 1, 2023
A powerful manifesto against ableist thinking. Many nondisabled people think that disabled people just want to be "normal." As this brief, outstanding text shows, that's not only wrong, but cruel. Shew, a professor of science, technology, and society at Virginia Tech, lost a leg to cancer at age 30 and suffered damaged hearing and "chemo brain" from the follow-up treatment. The first lie she heard was how wonderful new high-tech prosthetics were. In reality, the simplest, noncomputerized below-the-knee replacement costs $8,000 to $16,000, and all require a lifetime of return visits, adjustments, and replacements. Private insurance and Medicaid will cover some of the cost but never all, so the poor do without. Shew denounces the stereotypical story of a paraplegic "overcoming" a disability by moving around with the aid of new technology even as walking remains difficult. A wheelchair--"the universal icon of disability" that "requires the world to adjust to the disabled person"--is a much better way to get around. Although framed as a denunciation of technoableism, the belief that technical advances will "cure" disability, this book is a more inclusive, intensely squirm-inducing attack on the almost universal conviction that disabled people are broken and require fixing. The author makes a convincing case that their first priority is to get on with their lives and that their leading problem is not technical but social. "The world is set up to exclude disabled people," writes Shew, and readers who insist they are an exception will crumble before her list of the disability clich�s that saturate the media. There are the "pitiable freaks," in which "disabled people are cast as either objects of curious medical interest or as objects of pity and charity"; the "shameful sinners," a trope that "frames disability as a punishment or penance for some kind of sinful action"; and the "inspirational overcomers," sometimes known as "inspiration porn" in the disability community. Essential reading for the disabled and nondisabled alike.COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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August 1, 2023
Part memoir, part manifesto, Shew's book starts by defining what technoableism is. In order to do that, she goes back to ableism rooted in "inspiration porn"--the expectations that people with disabilities must be superheroes who overcome impossible odds to be "allowed" to exist. She then pivots to disabled people who use technological aids (such as hearing aids) and the harm of positioning disability as a problem. Infrastructure was built without the disabled in mind. Technoableism advocates believe that technology can eliminate disabilities--without including disabled people in these discussions or considering how devices integrate into daily life. It's nondisabled people arguing that technology, including AI, can "fix" the disabled. One chapter focuses on amputees, another on athletes and the Paralympics, and another on neurodivergence. Finally, the author addresses what accessible futures should look like. Centering the views of the disabled people the author has interviewed with special attention to unique considerations with technological enhancements makes this an essential text for the nondisabled to use to educate themselves on the harms of technoableism. Highly recommend for public and academic libraries.COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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One of BookRiot's Ten Best Disability Books of the Year
Shortlisted for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards
"Wonderfully lucid." —Andrew Leland, New York Times Book Review
A manifesto exploding what we think we know about disability, and arguing that disabled people are the real experts when it comes to technology and disability.When bioethicist and professor Ashley Shew became a self-described "hard-of-hearing chemobrained amputee with Crohn's disease and tinnitus," there was no returning to "normal." Suddenly well-meaning people called her an "inspiration" while grocery shopping or viewed her as a needy recipient of technological wizardry. Most disabled people don't want what the abled assume they want—nor are they generally asked. Almost everyone will experience disability at some point in their lives, yet the abled persistently frame disability as an individual's problem rather than a social one.
In a warm,...
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