At this point in the year, almost everyone on campus seems to be thinking about the end of the term. But this span of time doesn’t necessarily look or feel the same to everyone. Some of us who have disabilities move through time a little differently, experiencing it as particularly nebulous and abstract.
I am open with students about my disabilities, especially as an academic with ADHD. I want students to feel comfortable talking with me about their challenges, and I want to show them that there isn’t one correct way to study, manage time, or succeed.
The phrase crip time, coined by scholar and author Alison Kafer, acknowledges that folks with disabilities may experience spans of time in nonlinear ways that don’t align with the normative, societal understanding of time.
As an example, crip time can be seen in time blindness for folks with ADHD, who are often running late for—or losing track of time during—an activity. Time blindness can also mean feeling stuck in waiting mode, unable to start tasks if another is coming up later.
Crip time can also describe the unpredictable or frequent sick days that folks with chronic pain or fatigue may need, as well as the schooling, careers, and passions put on pause by folks who have spent weeks, months, or years receiving medical treatment or waiting for diagnoses.
Understanding crip time allows us to see how normative standards of time can be inaccessible to many people with disabilities. For workers in academic libraries, inaccessible expectations of time can include the strict structure of the 9-to-5 workday, rigid tenure and promotion timelines, expectations of committees’ output, the pace of scholarly publishing, and even the structure of instructional sessions.
Normative standards of time can be inaccessible to many people with disabilities.
In the common one-shot instruction model, for example, librarians try to instruct students in the tools they need to be skillful researchers and understand fundamental concepts of information literacy in one session. This model is less than optimal for anyone experiencing crip time.
When I am designing my instruction sessions, I aim to combat the prevalence of chrononormativity and create more accessibility by building in flexibility and forgiveness. This can include the following:
- Short, frequent breaks to let students catch up if they need time to process the information—and to also let me take a breather.
- Supplemental digital materials or printed handouts that walk students through the content if they are unable to attend because of an illness or need to engage with the information in multiple ways or multiple times.
- One-on-one appointment options, allowing students to work with me in the moment and at the speed that’s best for them.
When we acknowledge time’s relationship to productivity and capitalism, and the impact on individuals of what social scientist Ulrike Felt calls chronopolitics—the politics of time governing academic knowledge generation, epistemic entities, and academic lives and careers—accessibility is even more critical.
Chrononormative frameworks ensure that only people who are nondisabled have the greatest opportunity to succeed. By continuing to prioritize strict timelines over inquiry and exploration at one’s own pace, we further eliminate space for those who, while just as skilled and talented as their peers without disabilities, must operate with the disadvantage of crip time.
We need to openly discuss, explore, and understand the different ways people experience time and how their experience impacts their access to information, services, and working environments. When we understand these experiences and create flexibility in response, everyone can succeed.
Adapted from “Crip Time in the Academic Library” (Choice: Toward Inclusive Excellence blog, July 10, 2024).
