Video Interpreting Services: Calls for Inclusion or Redialling Exclusion?

Abstract

Videophones and video interpreting services for Deaf people are defined as telecommunication technologies in the USA, but as different types of assistive technologies in Sweden and Norway. This article discusses how the multiple definitions and ways of organising videophones within three sociotechnical systems mediate agency, and the resulting implications for inclusion and accessibility. If the technology and related service are organised external to the system it is intended to give access to, material exclusion mechanisms are reinforced or remain unchanged. In contrast, organisation of the technology and service within an existing sociotechnical system places the users in a more equal position relative to others. The core thesis is that the greater the integration of systems of heterogeneous actors, the greater the flow of agency and the less disabled – or different – the actors become.