Society, Hierarchies, and Accessibility
Theories and Cultural Impacts of Media and Technology — Reflections from Week Seven
When we say the word society, what exactly do we mean?
What does it mean to “belong” in a society?
I think people can have different levels of expectations and commitments when they derive the meaning of belonging to a society. I am committed to my society because I feel safe and secure in being part of a community. My father always says, “We are social beings, without social norms, without rules, without restrictions we are not humans” when he says it, he means a lot more than just security and safety. For him, being in a society predominantly means preserving his culture and traditions. Being in a society, for him, means going through similar social practices, and rituals, having a common belief system and passing that over to the next generations. I feel this limits our definition of society. A society in my opinion is a heritage that should be nurtured but at the same time, it should give people the freedom to choose their lifestyle.
What are people going to think if I do this?
I think being part of a society, which everyone is, in a way makes us think about others in the same society or community. We are always concerned about what other people will think about our thoughts and processes. We are worried about our image and reputation in society. We want to maintain a good status, and we want people to appreciate our values, thoughts and actions. It is probably safe to say that society influences our actions in ways we may not sometimes want it to.
Deleuze describes machines as systems of information that process, interpret, and remake the world according to their particular logic. He says that a society is made up of many such machines like social, political, bureaucratic, education, and more. I feel like societal hierarchy has a huge impact on every such system or machine within a society. Things are different for people on different levels.
Societal Structure and Hierarchy go hand in hand, but can a society exist without a hierarchy?
I say it can. Thinking about hierarchy takes me back to India and the Hindu caste system. The Hindu society was divided into four castes: Brahmins (priests or descendants of God), Kshatriya(warriors), Vaishya (Traders or Merchants), and Shudra (People who do manual labor). Even though things have changed a lot now and nobody really categorizes or differentiates based on caste anymore, there was a time when this discrimination was real. Hierarchy in this scenario created a division that negatively impacted people’s lives. While it made life difficult for people from the so-called lower castes, it also made the ones at the top of the hierarchy extremely dependent on others for day-to-day work. There have been stories of kings who lost their kingdoms because they never knew how their agricultural land was cultivated.
Accessibility and its Importance in Equal Existence
I have always focused my work on making things accessible for people, for everyone. I truly believe that accessible design is universal design. This brings me to my experience with The Ability Project at NYU where I have had the chance to practice User-Centered Design. Throughout my time here, I have learned a lot about assistive technology for people with disabilities, how assistive technology is inaccessible to so many people, also how society looks at someone with a disability. I remember Stella Young’s Ted talk where she said, “I do not exist to inspire you, I am not your inspiration”. There is a divide that exists in our society that always looks at a person with a disability as someone who definitely wants help. Even when we as designers when developing something, design something, we empathize, but that can go wrong if it is not done the right way.
The approach for building a design system should be to design “with” the users and not assume what the users might “like”.
I believe a strong emphasis on accessibility can help empower against hierarchical constructs of society. If we bring the power of technology and inclusivity to everyone, we can bring society together and grow as a whole.
