inequality | Platypus

Technologies of Equal Participation: Formats, Designs, Practices. Introduction.

 Svetlana Borodina  May 17, 2022

Listen to an audio recording of this piece read by Svetlana Borodina Only today, an unremarkable Friday morning in March 2022 (the day when I was writing this text), my participation has been requested at least eight times. On my way to work, as I was running down the stairs to catch a train, through the sound of music coming from my headphones I caught, “Please make sure to vote!” This was followed by a faint addition: “if you are a voter.” As I purchased coffee in a corner shop right outside the subway, the screen solicited my participation in their customer satisfaction survey: “What can we improve?” At work, as I sat down and opened my email, I saw that the NYC Parks and Rec Department had sent out a new batch of volunteering opportunities; a colleague had sent an invitation to participate in a round table next month; and a friend working on their UX portfolio had sent a link to a survey for an app they’d been working on (“What kind of problems do I run into in my commute?”). Meanwhile, my family’s WhatsApp chat was filling up with the regular, “Sveta, are you even here?” messages, complaining about my lack of participation in conversations. A gofundme campaign to crowdfund struggling refugees and a friend’s paper silently awaited their time, too. (read more...)

Writing disability

 Rebekah Cupitt  January 31, 2019

When writing inequalities, the language we use and our writings betray the power dynamics and the unequal relations that stem from the world we as researchers come from. This post explores how these inequalities play out in the worlds we embed ourselves in as outsider researchers and are apparent in what we write through a reflection on my own research with dDeaf television producers and actors in Sweden. (read more...)

Together in Crisis: the Politics of Day Zero in Cape Town

 Melissa K. Wrapp  February 20, 2018

Every morning before heading in to work, Lusanda weaves his way through shacks and sandy puddles, bucket in hand. The communal tap he uses is some fifty meters away. It’s relatively close, compared to some other settlements. “The problem is that tap there,” he explains pointing off in the distance, “If the tap is open there, this one will shut down, so I’ll have to wait for those ones to finish and fill up. That’s why all the time I keep my bucket full.” It is especially bad on Saturdays, when everyone is doing their laundry, so he strategically times the trip. Lusanda makes this journey twice every day, filling up a twenty-liter bucket, which he shares with his girlfriend. A couple of liters here for washing, a couple there for cooking and cleaning, all judiciously scooped from the bucket. (read more...)