Progressive Disability and Shifting Employment Opportunities: Conceptualizing the Disability Detour

• In Event: 50625 - The Future of Work for Disabled Workers

Abstract

Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation among individuals with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disorder resulting in blindness, we find evidence of invisible barriers to advancement due to visual disability. Our analysis details several organizational mechanisms that shifted employment opportunities, prompting participants to curtail their work ambitions. Participants rarely described such hindrances as discriminatory; instead, they tended to reframe their work-life balance and cultivate alternative jobs or activities. We term this lateral movement the disability detour. While emotionally protective, this detour tended to absolve workplaces from making accommodations for full inclusion, thereby reproducing inequality.

Authors

• Edward W. Morris, University of Kentucky

• Robyn Lewis Brown, University of Kentucky