Abstract

This study explores how disabled workers orchestrate care in their workplaces. Disability researchers have suggested that pronounced forms of caring may have negative consequences for disabled people, inciting increased feelings of dependency and disempowerment, positioning them as passive recipients of care. Drawing on the ethics of care and based on our inductive analysis of experiences of workers with hearing impairment in the UK, we explore how disabled workers take an active role in orchestrating care at the workplace through practices of coaching and resourcing. We define orchestration of care as the creation of socio-material arrangements that fosters the collective care of and for disabled workers, highlighting their active role in cultivating such arrangements with attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness.