Dignity and Diversity by Design
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Peekaboo! The Joke That Showed How Exclusion Makes Everyone Poorer – Including the Included

A speaker podium that moves up and down, unlike the one in the story.
A speaker podium that moves up and down, unlike the one in the story. (Photo: Lilian Müller.)

The moment I stepped onto the stage to begin my presentation on Universal Design, I stared at a huge monster of a fixed speaker podium that stood between me and the audience.

In a split second, I decided to make use of the situation. There was space to go around the podium on the right, but instead, I chose to stay behind it. As I started speaking, I couldn’t see the audience – and they couldn’t see me.

After a minute, I had a peekaboo moment and showed myself, “Tada, here I am!”, which made the audience laugh. True story, that helped me make a point that day:

Exclusion Works Both Ways – It Makes Us All Poorer

The presentation got a fun and memorable start, and it went great.

The experience has stayed with me. As someone using a wheelchair, I am used to being positioned as the one being excluded.

Our culture places an imagined “normal” person at the centre. Those who deviate are pushed to the margins. This pattern, “norm and deviation”, keeps reappearing [1].

But when someone is excluded, we all lose out.

Comic sketch with a person in a wheelchair behind l large speaker podium. (AI gen)
Comic sketch with a person in a wheelchair behind l large speaker podium. (AI gen)

Reference:

  1. Hedvall, P.-O., & Ericsson, S. (2024). The Problem with “Inclusion”? It Is Done to Someone by Someone. In Universal Design 2024: Shaping a Sustainable, Equitable and Resilient Future for All (pp. 18–25). IOS Press. https://doi.org/10.3233/SHTI240978.

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