Criptopias: Speculative Stories Exploring Worlds Worth Wanting

Abstract

In a manner of cripping access in technology, we use the concept of criptopias and what it might bring to technology research and Human-Computer Interaction along a range of speculative stories that explore desirable worlds from a crip perspective. We stretch our bodyminds into the past, present and futures to identify how we might thrive in worlds that welcome us, instead of giving us the persistent notion of being considered as an afterthought. Such a collection is necessarily eclectic and not oriented on providing solutions; rather, we carefully tread forward on trying to find different stories we tell to and about ourselves through speculative explorations of how disability-centred interactions could be shaped. However, as we discuss briefly at the end, allowing ourselves to desire difference has the tendency to throw us back into the lack of a given status quo, making such an endeavour surprisingly painful to endure - while simultaneously providing wholesome alternatives worth fighting for in solidarity.