Power to independence: a historical glimpse at the interactions between powered wheelchairs and the physically disabled students program at Berkeley
Brian Woods, Science and Technology Studies Unit, Department
of Sociology, University of York
Co-author(s): Nick Watson, School of Health and Welfare, University
of Edinburgh
Abstract
The emergence of powered wheelchairs has revolutionised the experience of disabled people. Not only have they enabled individual independence, but as we will argue, they were also central to the development of the disabled people's movement. However, we do not present a technological determinist position, certain social and political conditions needed first to be in place before powered wheelchairs became meaningful. In this paper, we will present a historical analysis of an example where powered wheelchairs both shaped and were shaped by the Disability Rights movement: The Physically Disabled Students Programme (PDSP). In the United States, in the early 1960's a small number of disabled students gained admission to the University of California at Berkeley and laid the foundation for the PDSP. Graduates from this programme went on to found the Independent Living Movement, which influenced not only disability politics in both the US and Europe but also challenged established ideas about wheelchair design and use.