Progressive disability and shifting employment opportunities: conceptualizing the disability detour
Abstract
Abstract Drawing on in-depth interviews among individuals with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disorder resulting in blindness, we explore how workers with vision impairment make employment decisions within structurally constrained situations. Our analysis details several organizational mechanisms that shifted employment opportunities, prompting participants to curtail their work ambitions. Participants rarely described such hindrances as discriminatory; instead, they tended to reframe their work-life balance and cultivate alternative activities and goals. We term this lateral movement the disability detour, and explore how seemingly voluntary career decisions reflect broader, embodied mechanisms through which inequality operates. While emotionally protective, the disability detour absolves workplaces from making accommodations for full inclusion, thereby reproducing ableist structures.
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Record history
| When | Event | Field | Old | New |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-18 19:37:53.011249+00:00 | identifier_assigned | DSEID | DSEID-000-5073426 |