“We Don’t Want You Here”: A Critical Examination of Staring, Disability, and the Inaccessible Environment

Disability scholars generally categorize staring as a stigmatizing action that has negative psychosocial impacts on disabled people. Yet, interestingly, staring is also oftentimes understood as natural, understandable, and is even encouraged in different contexts. In this paper, I first articulate the diverse ways staring is experienced and conceptualized by drawing from general sociological, queer, and disability theories, and I demonstrate that staring itself is a value-neutral action. I argue that staring is experienced particularly negatively by disabled communities because (1) staring that occurs within inaccessible environments reinforces societal sentiments that disabled individuals are unwanted and unvalued, and (2) disabled individuals often lack control over whether and how they are stared at; thus, when staring occurs in a physically inaccessible context, staring perpetuates a loss of control over social experiences. I conclude by articulating how participatory planning as an alternative approach to inclusive design can attenuate the harmful impacts staring has on disabled individuals.