Playing with Barbie: Diversity and Inclusivity in the Toybox presented by Katie Ellis and Hersinta

Описание: Play activities with toys give children joy while fulfilling their imagination. Toys also perform an educational function by representing social and cultural information. Through toys adults communicate what kind of world they think children should be prepared for, including complex issues on diversity and inclusivity. Barbie, one of the most popular dolls, has been heavily criticised for conveying problematic messages about race, gender, and body image to children. However, Mattel’s 1996 “wheelchair” Barbie Share a Smile Becky has been positively remembered as a significant representation of disability within the disability community, albeit, not without its problems.

In 2019, Mattel produced a wider variety of Barbie dolls with disabilities to promote diversity and inclusivity. While these dolls were marketed globally, they were largely produced in Indonesia. In this country disability dolls began to be marketed as key to inclusivity. However, it remains unclear how toys and playing activities can be utilised to educate and advocate for disability in Indonesia – to normalising differences in a country where disabled people are still largely viewed as objects of charity.

In this talk, we will discuss how toys can educate children on issues of diversity and inclusivity. We argue that toys as a form of popular culture can create positive representations for disability. We explore the Barbie case study and how Mattel markets the ideas of multicultural representation through their dolls to the global market, including Indonesia. Finally, we will discuss the challenges and opportunities to promote disability-themed toys, including the factors in influencing decision-making of buying toys, and diverse cultural perspectives in Indonesia.

Biographies: Dr Hersinta is a lecturer at LSPR Communication and Business Institute in Jakarta, Indonesia, and an adjunct associate researcher at the Centre for Culture and Technology (CCAT), Curtin University. Her research interests including media and disability, autism and developmental disabilities in Southeast Asia. She has published on disability and media topics including autism and neurodiversity, assistive technology and toys and disability. Her recent works involve collaboration projects with Indonesian universities and organizations to develop assistive communication tool for autistics. She currently leads the Centre for ASEAN Autism Studies at LSPR Communication and Business Institute.

Professor Katie Ellis is the Director of the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University and an internationally recognised expert on disability and digital access. She is the author or editor of 17 books with another three under contract. This includes two agenda setting handbooks and one major works series. As the series editor of Routledge Research in disability media studies she is curating a series of books that set the agenda for the next era of disability media studies. She is widely recognised as one of the most prominent international experts in disability media studies and regularly engages with the media on issues related to disability.