Ise analyses the (hu)man-wheelchair-icon.
She says the icon discriminates against people with disabilities.
This discrimination is called ableism.

Ise imagines a future without ableism.
She refers to this future as “crip.”
This word originally came from “cripple” and was a slur.
Now, disabled activists and scholars use “crip” as a form of pride.
The word “crip” challenges negative stereotypes about disability.

Ise uses two concepts to imagine Crip Futures: refusal and opacity.
To imagine Crip Futures, ise deconstructs the (hu)man-wheelchair-icon.
The icon merges a human and a wheelchair.

Some people use a wheelchair for mobility.
Some people don’t.
But the icon shows only one form of disability: the wheelchair.

Yet disability has many forms, both visible and invisible.

Visible and invisible forms of disabilities are:
- physical disabilities (beyond mobility impairment),
- visual or hearing impairments,
- intellectual, developmental or sensory disabilities,
- psychiatric or neurological conditions or neurodivergence
- chronic illnesses.

They don’t feel represented by the wheelchair.

This icon focuses on the wheelchair, not the human.
Some disabled people are even called “the wheelchair.”
But a wheelchair is a mobility aid, not a person.

You can find the icon in many public spaces.
It marks accessible toilets.
Toilets divide people into man, woman, and disabled.
The men’s toilet has an icon of a human.
The human is the standard.

The icon of the women’s toilet shows a human with a dress.
The dress is, like the wheelchair, added to the human body.
So, are women and disabled people less human?
No.

But the icons and the toilets are made, designed and built by men for men.
Usually, the human in the wheelchair icon is like the male toilet icon.
When the human has a dress, the accessible toilet is divided into men and women.
But: Disabled people are men, women, intersex, non-binary, transgender and agender.
They are not all represented.

Disabled people are individuals.
They have different lives, needs, wishes and dreams.
Disability is a term that summarises them.
However, the meaning of the word 'disability' depends on who you ask.

To describe the different meanings, ise refers to the different “models of disability.”
The oldest models are called the “moral model” and “medical model.”
In both models, disability is seen as a defect.

In the moral model:
Disability is either bad, caused by evil or sin.
This brings shame to the person with the disability.
Or the disability is good, as a test of faith.
The person with the disability becomes an inspiration.

In the medical model:
Medical staff are experts.
They offer “cures” or improvements.

In 1975, US-American disabled people demonstrated to get equal rights.
They suggested: Disability is a social construct.
Society and environment are the problem.
They fail to accommodate people with disabilities.
But this “social model” often reduces ableism to physical barriers.
It ignores the bigger problem of how disabled people are treated in society.
Finally, the “human rights and cultural” models of disability say:
Each disabled person should be able to decide how they identify.

For example:
“There are people with disabilities.”
or
“There are disabled people.”

Language highlights different aspects:
the person or the identity is “disabled.”

For Crip Futures, ise uses two theories:
refusal and opacity.

Refusal is a concept by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney.

Fred Moten and Stefano Harney are Black American scholars who wrote the book ‘The Undercommons.’
In their universities, they don't feel accepted or recognised.
So, they say, they stop looking for approval by systems.
Systems that denied their value in the first place.

Ise says, why should disabled people try to be accepted?
If society does not notice them or expects them to fit in.
Inclusion feels then more like compliance. Not like liberation.
Refusal is a strategy of imagination.
Based on the idea that the current systems are bad for everyone.
It is not a strategy of avoidance or isolation.
It is a method to look at each other as people.
To imagine community.

Opacity is a concept by Édouard Glissant.

Édouard Glissant is a French-speaking writer from the Caribbean who wrote the book ‘Poetics of Relation.’
There he demands the right to opacity.
To remain incomprehensible to dominant systems.
Systems that enforce transparency and understanding.

Currently, people need to prove their disabilities.
To get assistance, tools or access you need a disability certificate.
Medical staff and civil servants value and compare disabilities.
They are often able-bodied.

They decide what to grant a person with disability.
So, disabled people must explain, justify or “prove” their identities, bodies and experiences.
Opacity means to not be transparent.
To see value in what you can’t see, understand or know.

Ise uses Refusal and Opacity to imagine a Crip Future.
Crip Future uses crip time.
Crip time is a concept by Alison Kafer.
She says we experience time in different ways.
Not just in places like schools and jobs, but in all parts of life.
And against the normative — able-bodied — expectation:
Time is flexible and non-linear.

People with disability or chronic illness need more time.
Pain, fatigue and overstimulation take time.
It is okay to be late or change plans.
It is okay to use/ need/ want extra time.

Crip time demands the right to slow down.
People with disability do not need to hurry.
Crip time challenges ideals like progress, productivity and individual autonomy.
Sickness is seen as a temporary problem.
The aim is to treat the problem, manage it and overcome it.
So that the person can go back to work.

Crip time says no one should be expected to be always on time.
To always produce work at regular intervals.
Access should change the system, not the other way around.

This wish is a positive vision.
Crip futures need collective care.

Ise ends the thesis with a pause.
She has no easy solution.

But small changes today shape a better tomorrow.

Come find ise — we can think, speak, feel, write, draw or dance about it together.