‘Getting in and going’: Access to onboard toilets for fat and disabled people on commercial aircraft

Evans, Bethan ORCID: 0000-0002-5566-3106, Colls, Rachel and Bias, Stacy (2024) ‘Getting in and going’: Access to onboard toilets for fat and disabled people on commercial aircraft. Geoforum, 148. p. 103908.

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Abstract

In this paper we explore the accessibility of toilets onboard commercial aircraft for passengers who identify as fat or fat and disabled. Drawing on qualitative survey and interview data, we discuss people's experiences of inaccessible onboard toilet spaces including getting to and into the toilet, managing bodily matter, anticipating a lack of accessible toilets, and the (il)legitimacy of fat and disabled air passengers within commercial aircraft regulations. Our data illustrate that current provision of onboard toilets is wholly inadequate for fat and disabled passengers, requiring strategies to manage bodily matter which are detrimental to health. We further ‘fat geographies’ research and relational understandings of embodiment that attend to spatial and temporal contingency by drawing together insights from disability, crip, gender, queer and trans theory, in particular conceptualisations of ‘misfit(ting)’, crip time, and (il)legitimate lives.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > School of Environmental Sciences
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	15 Dec 2023 15:48
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2024 15:11
DOI:	10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103908
Open Access URL:	https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/271790/1-s2.0-...
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3177446