World-Making

World-making, drawing on Nelson Goodman's 'Ways of Worldmaking' and extended in disability scholarship by Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp, refers to the active construction of shared social worlds through symbols, practices and routines rather than the passive inhabitation of fixed environments. In disability and accessibility research, world-making reframes participation as something disabled people produce collectively - negotiating norms, building access, shaping roles - rather than a benefit granted by non-disabled designers. The term anchors design approaches that treat digital publics as places where personhood and citizenship are composed, and contrasts with remedial paradigms that position disabled users as trainees in predefined tasks.