Conference Program

In humanistic and social geography, the concept of sense of place has long been used to describe the affective, symbolic and experiential relationships that people develop with the environments they inhabit (Tuan, 1977). These reflections, however, have often implicitly assumed a normative subject able to move through space without encountering structural barriers.

Drawing on Crip Theory (McRuer, 2006) and the emerging interdisciplinary field of Crip Studies (Centrone, 2025), this contribution proposes a re-reading of the notion of sense of place through the lens of disability understood as a socially produced barrier. When cities, infrastructures and institutions are organised around able-bodied norms, disabled people encounter environments that are not only partially accessible but also socially and symbolically unwelcoming.

Disability geography has shown how spatial organisation can reinforce patterns of exclusion (Gleeson, 1999). At the same time, recent transfeminist analyses highlight how urban space reflects the needs and movements of a presumed universal subject, historically aligned with cisheteropatriarchal, able-bodied and economically privileged norms (Rosenkranz, Castelli & Olcuire, 2023). Space thus functions as a dispositif that regulates visibility, mobility and legitimacy.

From a crip perspective, these dynamics become particularly evident when considering the everyday spatial experiences of disabled and neurodivergent people navigating environments that are not designed for their bodies and sensory worlds (Parrella & Villani, 2023). Repeated encounters with architectural barriers, sensory overload or normative expectations of bodily performance reshape the lived relationship between bodies and places, often generating ambivalent forms of attachment, estrangement or avoidance.

This perspective is particularly relevant for educational environments, where spatial accessibility directly affects participation, recognition and the possibility of inhabiting institutions as democratic subjects.

Bringing crip theory into dialogue with human and urban geography, the paper argues that accessibility should be understood not merely as a technical adjustment but as a political issue concerning spatial justice and democratic participation. Rethinking urban and educational environments through disabled experiences opens new possibilities for imagining spaces grounded in interdependence, care and relational forms of belonging.