Assistive devices and distributed processes: reflections on activity systems and impairments

The article is based on an empirical research project involving persons with visual and hearing impairments and their use of assistive devices. The aim of the article is to develop a sociological understanding of the nature of assistive devices as impairments and disabilities are enacted within different everyday settings and mediated by tools and artefacts. Assistive devices include physical equipment, chemicals, animals, other persons, groups or organizations. They belong to different kinds that work at different levels of concreteness. The assistive devices mediate between the impaired body in the lived as well as the objective sense, and the material and socio-cultural environment through processes and types of activity. This takes place through what we term distributed physical and cognitive processes. These processes are constitutive for the practical understanding of assistive devices, impaired bodies and surroundings.