Negotiating academic environments: using Lefebvre to conceptualise deaf spaces and disabling/enabling environments

Abstract

ABSTRACT How do deaf academics navigate the physical environments of their workplaces? Original interviews with five deaf academics working in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK were conducted using walking interviews to explore the ways in which they experienced the physical environment of their HEI and how they produced their own deaf spaces within their workplace. Results show that deaf academics face distinct barriers to their involvement in and access to their HEIs, and analysis using a Lefebvrian approach shows that deaf academics have their own ways of subverting the spatial expectations of the HEI to create their own pockets of lived, deaf space.