Advancing an Embodied Understanding of Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities

Abstract The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) includes accessibility among its general principles and articulates it in Article 9. Further, accessibility obligations are included in several other provisions of the Convention. In that regard, the CRPD recognizes the significance of accessibility as an enabling factor, and as a precondition for persons with disabilities to participate fully in society. Embracing an interdisciplinary approach, and on foot of arts-based research in the form of inclusive dance, this article aims to re-construe the inherent dimensions of accessibility as a normative concept. It puts forward an ‘embodied understanding’ of accessibility with a view of advancing existing legal analysis and adding to traditional cognitive ways of knowing. On the whole, this article identifies three inherent and intertwined facets of such embodied understanding of accessibility—namely, respect for difference, collaboration and care, and layered complexity. It argues that this embodied understanding may help achieving the overall paradigm shift of the CRPD.