Deinstitutionalizing Independence: Discourses of Disability and Housing in Accessible Computing
Kevin M. Storer, Stacy M. Branham · 2021 · Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3441852.3471213
Summary
This paper uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine how the history of institutionalization and deinstitutionalization in the United States shapes contemporary Accessible Computing (AC) research focused on domestic spaces. The authors analyzed 101 peer-reviewed AC articles published between 2010 and 2019 across nine major ACM venues, filtering from an initial corpus of 1,037 works using keywords related to homes and housing. The study is grounded in the historical context of disability and housing in the USA, tracing how economic pressures of the Industrial Revolution, scientific beliefs about "curing" disability, and moralistic religious attitudes converged in the 1800s to create the institutional system. It then follows the deinstitutionalization movement through the Civil Rights era and the emergence of the Independent Living (IL) Movement, which fought for disabled people's right to live in community-based settings. The authors found that while AC research consistently sets "independence" as a primary design goal — reflecting deinstitutionalization values — the discourses surrounding housing in these works often reproduce the same economic, scientific, and moralistic logics that historically justified institutionalization, creating a fundamental tension between stated goals and underlying assumptions.
Key findings
The analysis identified three distinct discourses of housing that parallel historical justifications for institutionalization. First, economic discourses framed independence as resource-intensive and temporary while institutionalization was portrayed as an effortless outcome of circumstance, making independence seem inherently unsustainable. Second, scientific discourses medicalized domestic life by framing daily activities primarily through clinical lenses like "Activities of Daily Living" (ADLs), treating community-based living as clinically dangerous and familial relationships mainly as caregiving arrangements. Third, moralistic discourses euphemistically described contemporary institutions as benevolent "care facilities" and "sheltered living," framing institutional modes of care as desirable models for domestic AC design — leading to surveillance-based systems that replicate carceral logics in community settings. The authors propose three principles from the IL Movement to counter these patterns: upholding independence as a civil right rather than a constructed state, conducting domestic research on par with nondisabled peers rather than only through clinical utility, and adopting least restrictive design approaches that minimize surveillance and institutional replication.
Relevance
This paper is essential reading for accessibility researchers and practitioners designing technology for domestic use by disabled people. It reveals how well-intentioned AC research can inadvertently perpetuate institutional logics — for example, by designing smart home systems primarily as surveillance tools or framing domestic tasks only through clinical metrics. The three IL Movement principles offer a concrete framework for evaluating whether domestic technology designs genuinely support independence or subtly replicate institutional control. For practitioners, the key takeaway is to critically examine whether accessibility solutions position disabled users as autonomous individuals with rights, or as clinical subjects requiring monitoring and management. The study's limitation is its focus solely on ACM publications and US-centric history of institutionalization, though the discursive patterns identified likely extend beyond these boundaries.
Tags: disability studies · critical discourse analysis · institutionalization · independent living · housing · ableism · domestic technology · accessibility research
Standards referenced: Americans with Disabilities Act · Olmstead Decision