Crip Material Exploration as an Assistive Technology Research Framework: Situating Interdependence in Empowered Disabled Making

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) scholars have grappled with the question of how to directly involve people with disabilities (PwDs) in assistive technology (AT) research. While there is recognition that PwDs possess unique expertise, this understanding often remains limited to an assumption that the bounds of this expertise end with the embodied knowledge related to their impairments. However, PwDs possess expertise that extends beyond this narrow definition. In navigating different contexts within their communities of care, PwDs build empowered expertise through interdependence. This knowledge, grounded in everyday material experiences, can significantly inform future AT design practices. I offer a new crip-material exploration (CME) framework to expand the understanding of PwD expertise. In doing so, future AT research can better encompass the full range of the social connections and material experimentation that enriches the lived experiences of PwDs. The connective, inter-group mediation that PwDs are skilled in throughout everyday interactions points toward the importance of creating new research approaches to engaging with that expertise. CME can be leveraged by HCI scholarship to understand how the empowered interdependence of PwDs strengthens current and future AT design. A workshop structure is proposed to help guide scholars in implementing CME into future research designs.