"I am just terrified of my future" Epistemic Violence in Disability Related Technology Research

Abstract

Technology for disabled people is often developed by non-disabled populations, producing an environment where the perspectives of disabled researchers - particularly when they clash with normative ways of approaching accessible technology - are denigrated, dismissed or treated as invalid. This epistemic violence has manifest material consequences for our lives as disabled researchers engaging with work on our own states of being. Through a series of vignettes, we illustrate our experiences and the associated pain that comes with such engagement as well as the consequences of pervasive dehumanization of ourselves through existing works. Our aim is to identify the epistemic injustice disabled people experience within HCI, to question the epistemological base of knowledge production leading to said injustice and to take ownership of a narrative that all too often is created without our participation.