Hidden People, Hidden Spaces: On the invisible barriers of inclusivity with Society Staples
Akanksha Raja
(Originally published on apublicsquare.sg - September 2019)
Debra Lam and Ryan Ng. Photo courtesy of Debra Lam
Society Staples is a young social enterprise founded four years ago and run full-time by Debra Lam and Ryan Ng. Seven years ago, just out of their teens, they had started Deaf Dragons – providing dragon-boating sessions for d/Deaf individuals – which eventually evolved into the setting up of Society Staples, under which they run Different Dragons, dragon-boating sessions for disabled people, as well as corporate team-building activities. But I didn’t know any of this when I came across Hidden People, Hidden Spaces, a pilot programme organised by the team, which invited participants into the “spaces of hidden communities” in the form of a “three-hour experiential journey”, exploring questions about what an inclusive society looks like, particularly with regard to people with disabilities. The event popped up quite randomly, as these things do, on my Facebook feed, in a way that I felt was serendipitous; in light of this GRC commission, I’d been thinking about the idea of invisible and neglected spaces in society, the communities within them, and wanting to explore the ways in which people make efforts to engage and bring them to wider societal consciousness.
Hidden People, Hidden Spaces had nothing to do with dragon-boating or corporate team-building. Across the three sessions that took place, two were held in Eunos and one in Chai Chee. For some reason, an event described as an “experiential journey” tuned my bougie arts-goer brain to visual art- or performance-based walking trails such as Drama Box’s Closer installation or the OH! Open House art walkabouts. While Hidden Spaces isn’t arts-based, it is a form of advocacy, and it wasn’t a journey through a particular street or neighbourhood in and of itself, but centred around particular spaces in the neighbourhood that Debra and Ryan consider invisibilised. In Chai Chee, that was THK Home for Disabled Adults. I spoke to Debra to learn about the Hidden People, Hidden Spaces project, why certain spaces are more “hidden” than others, and the team’s thoughts on inclusivity.
Debra describes Hidden People, Hidden Spaces as an in-depth exploration of the disability sector, particularly disability homes, which she feels is one of the lesser known and understood aspects of the sector. “Disability isn’t a ‘popular’ social cause,” she notes, at least not as commonly discussed as income inequality or sexuality. And disability homes, in particular, disappear in the peripheral consciousness of non-disabled neurotypical adults, as abstract, faraway spaces of pity and charity. Many of the Chai Chee residents Society Staples had spoken to weren’t aware there was a disability home in the area nor did they know what goes on inside. Society Staples wants to bridge that gap in understanding and our mindset about inclusivity in relation to the disability sector.
Many people misconstrue inclusivity, Debra feels. “I’ve been working in the disability sector for about seven years, and when I first saw inclusive playgrounds were beginning to be built about three years ago, I thought it was wonderfully progressive.” But after hearing from a wheelchair user and preschool teachers of disabled and non-disabled children, she realised that it does little to alleviate stigma and does come off as tokenism. The flooring isn’t conducive to wheelchair users, for example. The new flooring for playgrounds that are inclusive of wheelchair users is a hard or metal flooring. But what teachers saw happening was that the able-bodied children tended to go play in the area not built for disabled children, while the disabled children lined up to play with the one or two items built for them, typically a merry-go-round and/or a swing. It’s something, compared to having nothing to play with a few years ago. But it isn’t enough. They’re in the same space, but they don’t interact. There’s also the psychological layer of separatism perpetuated in these spaces by parents or guardians who warn their able-bodied or neurotypical children against playing with disabled children, instilling fear before the children have a chance to interact. Beyond the playground, there are further problems with ostensibly inclusive infrastructure: for example, not all Braille lettering in elevators are correct, so it doesn’t necessarily make lifts accessible for those who are visually impaired. “Merely existing in the same space isn’t inclusion.”
And cultivating understanding is more than just about bringing people into the physical space of disability homes. Debra shared a story she’d been told by a social worker of a young resident from a disability home who had been looking forward to getting out, starting work and being independent in public spaces – until coming across abhorrent comments on a viral video on social media of a person on public transport making noise and behaving erratically. After reading the hateful comments on the post, the resident categorically refused to leave the home, and refuses to interact with anybody who isn’t disabled or a worker at the home. Public space (whether a common physical space like the MRT or the virtual ones of Facebook, Reddit, or Hardwarezone) is not only unwelcoming and unconducive for disabled people, it’s also insidiously threatening, leading a person to hem themselves further into the “hidden”.
I thought about another social issue that had been on my mind (and most Singaporeans’ minds) for several weeks prior: racism; the fear that some people of minority ethnicities feel when sharing their experiences of discrimination in public social media posts; the need to be palatable and “not too much” of your ethnicity because “your job/social life depends on a person from the majority liking you”; the wariness we feel in our physical lives in the way we “represent” our ethnic identities in relation to the stereotypes, assumptions and biases that are imposed upon us. I do not suggest the experiences of ethnicity-based stigma and disability-based stigma are alike at all and would be remiss to compare lived experiences, but I bring this up as my most immediate response to this story. Despite the ideal of physical or virtual public space as one that connects or brings people together, it inadvertently marginalises them physically and psychologically. I also recognised that as a person who has been able to navigate public spaces without being shamed or flamed for neurodivergent or neuroatypical behaviour, I’m complicit in disabling individuals who deal with this sort of stigma unless I speak and act against it.
“I believe in the power of people,” Debra shares after I ask what can be done to change our collective mindset. Speaking out and being aware is important, but there’s also “a severe lack of information that isn’t allowing change to happen, and a lot of people don’t know what the problems and gaps that marginalise persons with disabilities.”
While she acknowledges that Society Staples isn’t a disability-led enterprise and is a secondary lens, she asserts the importance of talking and working with people with disabilities in advocating for change. “Our hope is to be able to run the programme with social sector practitioners, and perhaps policymakers themselves, because they may not have all the information they should when making decisions on policies that impact people with disabilities.”
Follow Society Staples on FB, for more information on the next Hidden People, Hidden Spaces.