Transacting and Transcending Disabling Spaces During COVID-19

Abstract

This article aims to map the journey of disabled people through the ‘pandemic time zone’ across the two waves of COVID-19 in a metropolis of India and how they transcended the ensuing challenges. Using the concepts of Henri Lefebvre, we explore the agency of disabled people living and negotiating their everyday spaces during the pandemic. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with five participants with locomotor disability. Participants with disability reported experiencing challenges in navigating various spaces—at home, in the community and in government structures to transcend barriers to carry out everyday activities. The disruption of daily routines, navigating access and availability of food and altered medical spaces and related access, and lack of opportunities for strengthening social relationships and work productivity access, posed challenges to disabled people. The physical environs, the sociocultural contexts and the politics of impairments influence the intersections between disability, disabled people and their personal, public and political spaces. The advent of COVID-19 has brought in new conditions to these relationships and transactions that have implications for policy and practice.