Somaesthetic Socio-Cultural Design for Disability: Rethinking Body Marginality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54337/ojs.jos.v11i1.10586Abstract
Although design anthropology, disability studies, and somaesthetics share overlapping concerns, they have rarely been explicitly linked. Each brings distinct strengths—practicality, inclusivity, and theoretical depth—that merit integration. This paper explores how design historically caters to a standardised body, side-lining marginalised bodies as 'unfit'. By juxtaposing these three frameworks, we argue for a reimagined design ethos that advances social justice through deeper embodiment. Using non-European case studies, we highlight the aesthetic, functional, and political potential of inclusive design grounded in diverse bodily experiences.
References
Ahmed, S. (2006). Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Augé, M. (1998). A sense for the other: The timeliness and relevance of anthropology. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.
Barnes, E. (2009). Disability, minority, and difference. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 26(4), 337–355. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24355924
Baumgarten, A. G. (1954). Aesthetica, reflections on poetry (K. Aschenbrenner & W. B. Holther, Trans.). Berkeley: University of California Press. (Original work published 1750)
Braidotti, R. (2018). Affirmative ethics, posthuman subjectivity, and intimate scholarship: A conversation with Rosi Braidotti. In Decentering the researcher in intimate scholarship (Vol. 31, pp. 179–188). Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing.
Cameron, C. (2007). Whose problem? Disability narratives and available identities. Community Development Journal, 42(4), 501–511. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44259079
Campbell, F. K. (2009). Contours of ableism: The production of disability and madness. Griffith University: Palgrave Macmillan.
Campbell, F. K. (2018). Refocusing and the paradigm shift: From disability to studies in ableism. In A. Ghai (Ed.), Disability in South Asia: Knowledge and experience (pp. 38–57). New Delhi: Sage.
Coleman, R., Clarkson, J., & Cassim, J. (2016). Design for inclusivity: A practical guide to accessible, innovative and user-centred design. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Costanza-Chock, S. (2020). Design justice: Community-led practices to build the worlds we need. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Criado, T. S. (2020). Anthropology as a careful design practice? Zeitschrift für Ethnologie / Journal of Social and Cultural Anthropology, (H. 1), 47–70.
Criado Perez, C. (2019). Invisible women: Exposing data bias in a world designed for men. London: Chatto & Windus.
Das, S. (2020). Disability and public spaces: Universal design approaches. In N. Mehrotra (Ed.), Disability studies in India: Interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 61–74). Singapore: Springer.
Das, S. (2024). Embodiment, identity and design for disability. In S. Limaye, C. J. Johnstone, & M. Kayama (Eds.), Disability as diversity in India: Theory, practice, and lived experience (pp. 81–96). London: Routledge.
Das, S., Ventura, J., & Dubey, N. (2025). Disability, inclusive design, and culture in India and Israel. In S. Someshwar, S. Das, & B. Mahanta (Eds.), Narrative universes of disability. New York: Springer. (In press)
Davidson, M. (2015). Aesthetics. In R. Adams, B. Reiss, & D. Serlin (Eds.), Keywords for disability studies. (pp. 26–30).New York: NYU Press.
Davis, L. (1995). Enforcing normalcy: Disability, deafness and the body. London: Verso.
Devlieger, P. (Ed.). (2003). Rethinking disability: The emergence of new definitions, concepts & communities. Antwerp: Garant Publishers.
Dokumaci, A. (2023). Activist Affordances: How Disabled People Improvise More Habitable Worlds. Durham NC: Duke University Press.
Dreyfuss, H. (2003). Designing for people. New York: Skyhorse. (Original work published 1955)
Samuels, E. (2014). Fantasies of identification: Disability, gender and race. New York: NYU Press.
Ferguson, P., & Nusbaum, E. (2012). Disability studies: What is it and what difference does it make? Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, 37(2), 70–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/154079691203700202
Friedner, M., & Kusters, A. (2020). Deaf anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 49(1), 31–47.
Gal, M., & Ventura, J. (2023). Introduction to design theory: Philosophy, critique, history and practice. Abingdon: Routledge.
Garland-Thomson, R. (1997). Extraordinary bodies: Figuring physical disability in American culture and literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Garland-Thomson, R. (Ed.). (1996). Freakery: Cultural spectacles of the extraordinary body. New York: NYU Press.
Ginsburg, F., & Rapp, R. (2013). Disability worlds. Annual Review of Anthropology, 42, 53–68.
Goodley, D., Lawthom, R., & Runswick-Cole, K. (2019). Disability studies: An introduction. London: Sage.
Geurts, K. L., & Komabu-Pomeyie, S. G. M. A. (2016). From ‘sensing disability’ to seselelame: Non-dualistic activist orientations in twenty-first-century Accra. In M. Grech & K. Soldatic (Eds.), Disability in the Global South: The critical handbook (pp. 85–98). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42488-0_6.
Guffey, E. (2017). Designing disability: Symbols, space and society. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
Guffey, E. (Ed.). (2023). After universal design: The disability design revolution. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
Guersenzvaig, A., Ventura, J., & Espelt, G. (2024). Change agents: Blueprints for inter-institutional collaborations in social design—Literature analysis. SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5058971
Gupta, A. (2011). Jugaad innovation: Think frugal, be flexible, generate breakthrough growth. New Delhi: Random House.
Guspara, W. A. (2024). Exploring somaesthetic design and phenomenology in understanding paraplegic mobility. International Journal of Creative Multimedia, 5(2), 55–63.
Hammer, G. (2021). A pirouette with the twist of a wheelchair: Embodied translation and the creation of kinesthetic commensurability. American Anthropologist, 123(2), 292–304.
Hamraie, A. (2016). Universal design and the problem of “post-disability” ideology. Design and Culture, 8(3), 285–309.
Hartblay, C. (2017). Good ramps, bad ramps: Centralized design standards and disability access in urban Russian infrastructure. American Ethnologist, 44(1), 9–22.
Hartblay, C. (2020). Disability expertise: Claiming disability anthropology. Current Anthropology, 61(S21), S26–S36.
Hendren, S. (2020). What can a body do? How we meet the built world. New York: Riverhead Books.
Höök, K. (2018). Designing with the body: Somaesthetic interaction design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Imrie, R. (1996). Disability and the city: International perspectives. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.
Jun, H. (2018). Social justice, multicultural counselling, and practice: Beyond a conventional approach. Cham: Springer.
Kafer, A. (2013). Feminist, queer, crip. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Kasnitz, D. (2020). The politics of disability performativity: An autoethnography. Current Anthropology, 61(S21), S16–S25.
Kasnitz, D., & Shuttleworth, R. (2001a). Engaging anthropology in disability studies. In L. J. Rogers & B. B. Swadener (Eds.), Semiotics and dis/ability: Interrogating categories of difference (pp. 19–41). Albany: SUNY Press.
Kasnitz, D., & Shuttleworth, R. (2001b). Introduction: Anthropology in disability studies. Disability Studies Quarterly, 21(3).
Kuppers, P. (2003). Disability and contemporary performance: Bodies on edge. New York: Routledge.
Kuppers, P. (2011). Disability culture and community performance: Find a strange and twisted shape. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kuppers, P. (2014). Studying disability arts and culture: An introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
McRuer, R., & Mollow, A. (Eds.). (2019). Disability and queer embodiment: Monsters, freaks and disability alternatives. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Mehrotra, R. (2008). Architecture in India since 1990. Mumbai: Pictor.
Mills, M., & Sanchez, R. (Eds.). (2023). Crip authorship: Disability as method. New York: NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479819386.001.0001
Millett-Gallant, A., & Howie, E. (Eds.). (2017). Disability and art history. London: Routledge.
Millett-Gallant, A., & Howie, E. (Eds.). (2022). Disability and art history from antiquity to the twenty-first century. London: Routledge.
Mukherjee, R. (2015). Frugal innovation or innovation by frugality? South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 38(4), 623–638.
Nannini, A. (2021). Critical aesthetics: Baumgarten and the logic of taste. Aesthetic Investigations, 4(2), 201–218.
Nannini, A. (2022). Somaesthetics in Baumgarten? The founding of aesthetics and the body. Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics, 59(2), 103–118.
Neufert, E. (2023). Architects’ data (Original work published 1936). London: John Wiley & Sons.
Parvin, N. (2023). Just design: Pasts, presents, and future trajectories of technology. Just Tech: Social Science Research Council, February 1, 2023.
Piepzna-Samarasinha, L. L. (2022). The future is disabled: Prophecies, love notes and mourning songs. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.
Pullin, G. (2009). Design meets disability. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Quayson, A. (2007). Aesthetic nervousness: Disability and the crisis of representation. New York: Columbia University Press.
Radjou, N., Prabhu, J., & Ahuja, S. (2012). Jugaad innovation: A frugal and flexible approach to innovation for the 21st century. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Saito, Y. (2017). Everyday aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Saito, Y. (2022). The aesthetics of care. London: Bloomsbury.
Siebers, T. (2008). Disability theory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Siebers, T. (2010). Aesthetic subjects. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Shahar, D., & Ventura, J. (2023). Bespoke healthcare design. In R. Shusterman & B. Veres (Eds.), Somaesthetics and design culture (pp. 215–247). Leiden: Brill.
Shakespeare, T. (2013). Disability rights and wrongs revisited (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Shilling, C. (2012). The body and social theory (3rd ed.). London: Sage.
Shusterman, R. (2012). Thinking through the body: Essays in somaesthetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Staples, J. (2020). Decolonising disability studies? Developing South Asia-specific approaches to understanding disability. In N. Mehrotra (Ed.), Disability studies in India: Interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 25–41). Singapore: Springer.
Staples, J., & Mehrotra, N. (2016). Disability studies: Developments in anthropology. In M. Grech & K. Soldatic (Eds.), Disability in the global south: The critical handbook (pp. 35–49). Cham: Springer.
Surbaugh, M. (2010). Somaesthetics, education, and disability. Philosophy of Education Archive, 417–424.
Titchkosky, T. (2011). The question of access: Disability, space, meaning. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
van Rompaey, C. (2017). The concept of beauty in Alexander Baumgarten’s Aesthetica. Aesthetic Investigations.
Ventura, J., & Bichard, J. A. (2016). Design anthropology or anthropological design: Towards social design. International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation, 5(3–4), 222–234.
Ventura, J., & Gunn, W. (2017). Now you see me, now you don’t: Medical design anthropology, improvisational practices and future imaginings. Anthropology in Action, 24(3), 45–55.
Ventura, J., & Mattozzi, A. (2026). The future of design anthropology: Bricolage as translation. (Forthcoming).
Wendell, S. (1996). The rejected body: Feminist philosophical reflections on disability. New York: Routledge.Wendell, S. (1996). The rejected body: Feminist philosophical reflections on disability. New York: Routledge.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Prof., Prof.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Articles published in The Journal of Somaesthetics are following the license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License: Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs (by-nc-nd). Further information about Creative Commons
If excerpts, tables, figures, charts, artwork or photographs from other copyrighted works are included in an article, it is the author’s responsibility to obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source’s in the article and citation list.
