The Ecological Citizen: Confronting human supremacy
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Long article
What’s accessibility got to do with ecocentrism?
The Ecological Citizen Vol 9 No 2 2026: 138–44 [epub-163]
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ACCESS PDF OF ARTICLEFirst published: 22 June 2026 | PERMANENT URL | DOWNLOAD CITATION IN RIS FORMAT
Abstract
Drawing on disability studies, animal studies and ecocentric environmental ethics, this article argues that built and managed environments are organized around a narrow anthropocentric ideal of embodiment – the able-bodied, mobile, independent and economically productive human individual. Such environments thus tend to marginalize both disabled humans and nonhuman beings, albeit differently, through spatial arrangements that privilege certain forms of embodiment while excluding or devaluing others. These ableist and speciesist exclusions are traced to a common set of assumptions about value, normality and belonging embedded within social systems. Ecocentrism challenges these assumptions by affirming the intrinsic value of life's diversity and recognizing the interdependence of nonhuman communities. From this perspective, accessibility emerges not as a purely human technological concern, but as a multispecies ethical concern centred on human–nonhuman co-dwelling compatible with ecological limits. Ecocentric approaches to planning, architecture and design should be guided by principles of ecologically constrained multispecies co-dwelling, in which diverse forms of life are recognized as legitimate co-inhabitants of shared environments.
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