Listen, Play, Learn: Rethinking Expertise and Collaboration in the Field of Disability Support Services

Abstract

This chapter brings together the fields of the health humanities and disability justice to analyse a collaborative project. Focused on an improvisation “toolkit” meant to be a resource to support individuals with complex disabilities, such as Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), the toolkit was meant to facilitate low-barrier improvisation games. In a primary iteration of this project, it was imagined to be a space for creative exploration and expression by participants, including disability support agency workers and “clients,” as a resource to enhance connectivity and counter social isolation. This chapter focuses on an unexpected iteration of the project that arose following a necessary disruption that raised questions about the foundational assumptions about the project and who was involved in its design. The project pivoted and new collaborations emerged. What followed were unexpected pedagogical practices within and between researchers, artists, and collaborators that emerged following disruption. The result was a rich pedagogical space in which the collaborators experienced new ways to think about how we play and learn together as well as mechanisms of accountability in practice. What emerged is a project that can be situated at the intersections of the health humanities and disability justice with new ways to think about collaboration and accountability in research and community programing.