Race, Disability, and Technology: A Call to Action for Accessibility Researchers
Aashaka Desai, Aaleyah Lewis, Sanika Moharana, Anne Spencer Ross, Jennifer Mankoff, Christina Harrington · 2026 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3772276
Summary
This paper presents a framework for accessibility researchers to meaningfully engage with race and disability as intersecting identity dimensions. Building on Kimberlé Crenshaw's foundational work on intersectionality—which originated to address how Black women experienced discrimination differently from either Black men or white women—the authors argue that accessibility research has largely treated disability in isolation from other marginalized identities, particularly race. The paper establishes that both race and disability are socially constructed categories whose meanings shift across cultural and historical contexts. The authors review how existing accessibility and HCI research has begun addressing intersectionality, finding that while some work examines race and disability together, much of the field still treats them separately or defaults to whiteness as an unexamined norm. Three detailed case studies illustrate how race and disability intersect in technology research: Bennett et al.'s work on how AI image descriptions represent (or misrepresent) race and disability; Gonzales' study of bilingual accessibility content creation showing how language access intersects with disability access; and Hamidi and Karachiwalla's research on refugees with disabilities navigating socio-cultural barriers. These cases demonstrate that attending to intersectionality is not optional but essential for understanding users' actual experiences. The authors propose a practical four-stage framework covering the entire research process: Formalization (choosing topics and citing diverse voices), Framing/Scoping (considering how race shapes the research problem), Methods (recruiting diverse participants and examining researcher positionality), and Analysis/Writing (interpreting data through intersectional lenses and using appropriate language).
Key findings
The framework identifies specific decision points where researchers can integrate intersectional perspectives. During formalization, researchers should practice citational justice by uplifting contributions from both academic and community sources, recognizing that transformative frameworks like Disability Justice emerge from activist praxis, not solely academia. Key tensions arise when engaging with intersectionality: balancing narratives of joy and grief (avoiding both trauma-porn and toxic positivity), honoring diverse narratives within communities (not treating racial or disability groups as monolithic), and attending carefully to language (recognizing that terms carry different weights across communities). The paper calls for expanding intersectional work beyond academia to include activist media, public scholarship, and community knowledge. It also urges extending analysis to other marginalized identities (gender, sexuality) and global contexts beyond the U.S., where different legal frameworks and cultural norms shape disability experience. A critical finding is that methodological defaults—such as centering whiteness or able-bodiedness—are often invisible but profoundly shape research outcomes. The authors call for embodied, crip-informed approaches that center the nuanced experiences of disabled people from racially marginalized communities.
Relevance
This paper is essential reading for accessibility researchers and practitioners seeking to make their work more inclusive and equitable. It provides concrete guidance for integrating intersectional analysis throughout the research lifecycle—from choosing what to study to how findings are written and disseminated. For practitioners, the key takeaway is that designing for "disability" without considering race (and other identities) will miss important user needs. Accessibility solutions that work for white disabled users may not serve disabled users of color equally. The framework helps teams ask better questions during user research and design processes. The paper also challenges the accessibility field to reckon with its own demographics and defaults. Who conducts accessibility research? Whose experiences are centered? The call for citational justice and community-engaged knowledge production offers a path toward more equitable research practices. While the paper focuses on research methodology rather than specific technical solutions, its insights apply wherever accessibility work intersects with diverse communities.
Tags: intersectionality · race · disability studies · research methods · critical theory · disability justice