[Commlist] CFA: Disability, Technology and Digital Inclusion in Southeast Asia

*CFA: Disability, Technology and Digital Inclusion in Southeast Asia *

Organizers: Kuansong Victor ZHUANG, Gerard GOGGIN, Jennifer SMITH-MERRY

Sponsored by:

Centre for Disability Research and Policy, University of Sydney
Sydney Southeast Asia Centre, University of Sydney

Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Asian Communication Research Centre, Nanyang Technological University

Online only

8 March 2024, 11am to 6pm AEST

Asia has been widely noted as the world’s largest market in digital 
technology. While researchers have focused on the efforts of Japan, 
South Korea, and China, Southeast Asia has been on the rise for the past 
5-10 years, especially attracting attention with the prominence of 
digital platform companies such as Gojek (headquartered in Indonesia) 
and Grab (Singapore HQ). These digital platform companies have 
established a foothold not only in their home countries (Indonesia and 
Malaysia) but also expanded across the region. Such extensive 
digitalization of society is mirrored by a longer historical trajectory 
of Southeast Asian countries adopting the smart and technology as 
enablers for economic growth of development, for instance in Singapore 
(Goggin and Zhuang 2022) and Malaysia (Bunnell 2015, 2004), just to name 
two.


We juxtapose this with the emergence of disability as an area of 
considerable research, social, and policy importance across Southeast 
Asia, underpinned by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of 
Persons with Disabilities, and regional initiatives like the Incheon 
Strategy and the ASEAN Enabling Masterplan. Notably, the third 
Asian-Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities 2023-2032 was convened 
in Indonesia and culminated in the Jakarta Declaration. Across Southeast 
Asia, we see vibrant disabled communities and research appearing, as 
well as various government attempts at achieving disability inclusion. 
In particular, the ASEAN Enabling Masterplan puts forth key 
recommendations to support the development of inclusive ICTs. AEC 12 
highlights the importance of “Promot[ing] smart city projects that have 
inclusive infrastructure and technologies that are accessible to urban 
dwellers with disabilities”, while AEC 13 notes the need to “Encourage 
inclusive ICT by improving its accessibility and usability for persons 
with disabilities and by upgrading digital skill sets of developers and 
users to have a more digitally empowered and connected ASEAN people and 
stakeholders” (ASEAN 2019).  Accordingly, digital inclusion for people 
with disability is a high priority area for policymakers, industry, 
technology designs, institutions (such as education, law, and others), 
and civil society organizations, even as digital forms of governance are 
increasingly prevalent.

We bring together these developments – the extensive digitalization of 
society and the use of technology in all aspects of life (especially 
with disability), the embrace of disability rights globally, and the 
pursuit of digital inclusion by Southeast Asian nation states – into 
productive conversation. While digital technology is a crucial area for 
realizing goals of social and economic participation as well as rights, 
the practices of digital inclusion are however not uniformly spread 
among people with disability across the region; what some have described 
as digital divides and digital inequalities (Goggin 2017; Dobransky and 
Hargittai 2016; Hargittai and Hsieh 2013). There have been estimated to 
be more than 90 million people in Southeast Asia with disability, and 
for many, assistive technology is a key part of their lives. 
Importantly, many disabled people are not able to fully participate in 
society on an equal basis with others and the WHO has called for 
government action and research to promote inclusion.

Importantly, research focused on the intersections of technology, 
digital inclusion, and disability across Southeast Asia is very much 
nascent. Research and policy frameworks, exemplars, and models relating 
to disability and digital inclusion still largely derive from a small 
set of influential jurisdictions, including the US, UK, and Europe.

In this call for abstracts, we invite research across disciplines that 
builds on disability studies’ core principles. Submissions may either 
focus on Southeast Asia as a region, and/or specific Southeast Asian 
nation-states. Submissions may consider focusing on addressing (but not 
limited to) any of the following themes and issues:

·Digital Citizenship

·Digital Inclusion

·Digital Justice

·Digital Governance

·Digital Inequalities

·Digital Transactions

·Assistive Technology

·Political Economy of technology and disability

Instructions:

·Email a 300-word abstract, excluding references to 
(victor.zhuang /at/ ntu.edu.sg) <mailto:(victor.zhuang /at/ ntu.edu.sg)> by *_2 Feb 
2024_* with the subject line “Disability, Technology and Digital 
Inclusion in Southeast Asia”

·Any queries should also be directed to (victor.zhuang /at/ ntu.edu.sg) 
<mailto:(victor.zhuang /at/ ntu.edu.sg)>

·Please also state if you have any accessibility requirements.

·The conference will be zoom only.

·Select presentations will be invited to submit full papers after the 
conference for a journal special issue (TBC).

This event is funded and supported by the SSEAC Collaborative Research 
Grant, /Disability and Digital Inclusion in Southeast Asia/.

References

ASEAN. 2019. /ASEAN Enabling Masterplan 2025: Mainstreaming the Rights 
of Persons with Disabilities/. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat.

Bunnell, Tim. 2004. /Malaysia, modernity and the multimedia super 
corridor: A critical geography of intelligent landscapes/. Routledge.

---. 2015. "Smart city returns." /Dialogues in Human Geography/ 5 (1): 
45-48.

Dobransky, Kerry, and Eszter Hargittai. 2016. "Unrealized potential: 
Exploring the digital disability divide." /Poetics/ 58: 18-28.

Goggin, Gerard. 2017. "Disability and digital inequalities: Rethinking 
digital divides with disability theory." In /Theorizing Digital 
Divides/, edited by Massimo Ragnedda and Glenn W. Muschert, 63-74. New 
York: Routledge.

Goggin, Gerard, and Kuansong Victor Zhuang. 2022. "Disability as Smart 
Equality: Inclusive Technology in a Digitally Advanced Nation." In 
/Digital Inclusion: Enhancing Vulnerable People’s Social Inclusion and 
Welfare?/, edited by Panayiota Tsatsou, 257-275. London: Palgrave.

Hargittai, Eszter, and Yu-li Patrick Hsieh. 2013. "Digital Inequality." 
In /The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies/, edited by William H 
Dutton, 129-150. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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