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4 - Accessibility in/as Caring

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2022

Juliet Davis
Affiliation:
Cardiff University
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Summary

Introduction

I began to allude to the importance of accessibility in facilitating new patterns of care in the previous chapter, and the goal of this chapter is to consider in depth how urban design can mobilize notions of access to influence care needs, relations and practices. However, I begin the discussion with a quandary since two of the major goals of accessibility as constructed in the context of urban design theory have an uneasy relationship with the ideas of care and from the ethics of care which I have presented thus far.

The first of these goals is personal autonomy. The accessibility of built form is often seen to shape the autonomy that people such as those with a mobility or sensory impairment have in looking after themselves and choosing how and where to live. The second goal is universality. The goal of accessible urban design, such as within the context of ‘universal design’ discourses, is seen to be the creation of city forms and places that are navigable by all, satisfying principles of inclusivity and equity (see, for example, Steinfeld and Maisel, 2012).

As we saw in Chapter 1, care ethics adopts a critical position regarding the concept of autonomy and particularly the ways in which it is seen to have been idealized in society. An emphasis on autonomy, as Gilligan argued, not only implies that the goal of human development should be the ability to fend for oneself, to become a free agent able to act independently of others, but also serves to mask and devalue the ties and relations of care that may in fact be vital to the resilience, wellbeing and choices available to individuals and communities. Stemming from this critique, as we have seen, care ethics has centred on a conception of humans as interdependent – a condition that does not negate autonomy altogether but that reconceives it as relational, as given by nurture and support rather than by the extraordinary capabilities of self-directed, self-sufficient individuals (see, for example,Verkerk, 2001).

Care ethics also contains a critique of universality that, as discussed in Chapter 1, is key to the ways in which it is distinguished from the ethics of justice and the Western Enlightenment philosophies from which these arise.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Caring City
Ethics of Urban Design
, pp. 63 - 87
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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