Beyond Inclusion: Ethnographic analysis regarding the precarity of disability and the need for belonging on UCSC campus
Social Sciences
Anthropology
Higher education campuses are a changing landscape both socially and politically, one which positions disabled life as increasingly precarious. The demographic of students receiving accommodations for purposes of reaching academic goals and reducing barriers to education is rapidly increasing. While there are many claims as to why this is happening, it doesn’t change the reality; more and more students are receiving accommodations every year. While there is an honorable emerging push for inclusion (as intervention) for students with disabilities, this in its most reductionist form is nothing more than a retrofit and at its broadest, will never fully suffice in creating equal access for disabled students. Based on current ethnographic data, this article, which centers on university students with cognitive and psychological disabilities, examines the possible loopholes in the paradigm of inclusion and flaws of universal design while promoting an accompaniment, a radical acceptance that beckons the cultivation of belonging.
