Assistive spectacles: A vision for the future

Recent work in the intersections of feminist technoscience studies and critical disability studies provides a wealth of perspectives with which to challenge ableist and curative imaginaries that remain in the foreground of emerging accessible technologies (Hamraie in Hypatia 30(1):307–313, 2015; Kafer in Feminist, Queer, Crip. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2013; Shildrick 2015). These visions frequently cast such technologies as harbingers of a future where disability is all but eliminated. Perhaps no other device best exemplifies this trend than eSight, makers of a wearable headset, whose mission is “to make blindness history by 2020” (eSight in Make Blindness History by 2020, 2018e. https://web.archive.org/web/20190117025248/https://www.makeblindnesshistory.com/). The company uses viral marketing and crowdfunding campaigns with ‘tear-jerker’ (their words) videos of users regaining their sight or being able to see for the first time, inviting viewers to become donors and “see what happens when you give the gift of sight” (eSight in Moments. https://www.esighteyewear.com/moments, 2008b). In this paper, we explore the promises and perils of such visions of disabled lives and advocate for accessible futures (Kafer in Feminist, Queer, Crip. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2013), rather than just able-bodied ones. Crip technoscience offers a new way of thinking about disability and technology that crucially needs to be reflected in how these devices, narratives—and their users—are fashioned, reproduced and taken up; disability’s desirable future is more than just a marketing spectacle.