Compromised Agency

A concept from science and technology studies describing situations where an individual's capacity to make meaningful choices is structurally constrained by systemic forces beyond their control, even as they retain some degree of decision-making power. In assistive technology contexts, compromised agency recognizes that AT choices made by disabled people and their families are not freely made but are shaped by uneven distribution of resources, institutional barriers, information asymmetry, and power dynamics. The concept challenges the assumption that AT adoption or abandonment transparently reflects individual preferences, instead revealing how choices are conditioned by what options are available, affordable, and accessible within a given social and institutional context.