Urban infrastructures of ablement

The historical production of the “normal” pedestrian in Buenos Aires

Bibliographic Data

ID10862675
AuthorsFrancisco Fernández Romero (0000-0002-6769-9683, Universidad de Buenos Aires, corresponding author)
Year2025
Publication date2025-12-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueUrban Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0042-0980 • E-ISSN: 1360-063X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00420980251396493
OpenAlexW7117315399
LanguageEN
References cited27

The fields of ability and ableism studies advance previous work in disability studies, which shows how disability is socially produced, to focus on how the abilities of non-disabled subjects are also produced. That is, how do social contexts selectively support, enable or enhance the capacities of certain body-minds? Geography can play a key role in these explorations by interrogating the role of space in these processes of ablement. This article aims to uncover the taken-for-granted ways in which urban infrastructures produce a “normal” pedestrian with the illusory ability to roam the city unaided, while simultaneously not enabling and even restricting the mobility of others. To do so, it addresses infrastructures such as sidewalks and street crossing systems which consolidated in Buenos Aires, Argentina, between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An analysis of municipal documents shows how walking was made possible due to these infrastructures, which eliminated environmental obstacles and protected people from traffic. But this enablement did not reach all body-minds, as disabled people were expected to be elsewhere, in segregated institutions or domestic spaces. For this analysis, the article draws from disability geography, ability and ableism studies, science and technology studies, and Foucauldian notions of biopower

Ableism · Disabled people · Human geography · Pedestrian · Production (economics · Space (punctuation) · Urban space · Work (physics · Disability Rights and Representation · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Water Governance and Infrastructure