Care Web

A care web is a relational network of overlapping, often reciprocal support that sustains a disabled person's participation in everyday life, described by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in 'Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice'. Rather than locating support in a single paid relationship or formal service, care webs distribute it across friends, family, peers, carers and community members. In HCI and social VR research, the concept is used to describe how access is co-created by multiple people around a disabled user - for example, a carer helping with the headset, a researcher offering in-world scaffolding, a peer teaching a new mechanic - making clear that access is a collective accomplishment rather than an individual capability.