CM Seminar: Centering Disability in Playful Caring Community Spaces

Abstract:

Marginalized people, such as disabled individuals, often find themselves stigmatized and isolated. This can lead to a host of other challenges, including exacerbating current obstacles and creating new mental health concerns. My research explores how playful technology can support access to community for disabled individuals. In particular, games, such as Minecraft, are not only fun to play but can also be a place of community building and a space for healing from trauma. Communities use Minecraft as a foundation, but then also engage in a variety of other social platforms as well. In this talk, I will discuss how social technology plays a key role in facilitating access to community support and can bridge virtual and physical worlds in everyday life.

Bio:

Kathryn E. Ringland is a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California Santa Cruz. She holds a PhD in Informatics from the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California Irvine. She received her B.S. in Psychology from Washington State University Vancouver. She is also the co-founder of the Kaina Institute for Equitable Research. Her research contributes to the larger understanding of how people with disabilities experience and interact within society. Her work largely centers on understanding, designing, and developing technology to help support people with disabilities. Specifically, Kate contributes to how we understand psychosocial disabilities, such as autism or depression, and how technology can support people with psychosocial disabilities.

The Zoom access link and passcode are:
https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/95101750908?pwd=aU5QeTJhL1J0OGVvVHBncStabE1Pdz09
Meeting ID: 951 0175 0908
Passcode: 657590