Simulation, Empathy and Inclusion: Lessons from Lockdown in Japan and Australia
This presentation examines the social isolation and medical vulnerability as exacerbated by the pandemic in the general population, arguing that it can mirror the isolation and hardship often associated with disabled people’s lives. If we accept the lockdown experience as disabling, what can we learn from this experience considering the successes (and failures) of “simulation” exercises regarding disability and impairment? We also consider changing notions of personal vulnerability – again, a concept most often associated with disabled people, or older people – who were targeted in the early, pre-vaccination period of the lockdowns as specifically vulnerable to serious consequences. We posit that representations of the lockdown experience -- seen through online communities, and mass media pieces -- can provide the empathetic connections needed between disabled and nondisabled stakeholders to improve inclusive policy in schools, workplaces and the wider community.
Speaker Bio
Carolyn S. Stevens is Emeritus Professor of Japanese Studies at Monash University. Trained in anthropology at Harvard and Columbia Universities, her research focuses mainly on social problems in Japan, disability studies and popular culture in Japan. Author of five monographs and editor of three collections, she is currently serving as Editor in Chief of the interdisciplinary journal Japanese Studies (Routledge) and is one of the series editors of The Palgrave Disability Series in Asia & the Pacific. Her upcoming publications include the co-editing The Springer Handbook of the Body, Culture and Society in Japan and the co-authored monograph Disability, COVID-19 and Accessibility in Japan and Australia: lessons from lockdown (Palgrave).