What can you build while you are still crossing, when your body is breaking down and systems don’t see you yet?
This site is my small laboratory for that question as a Filipino cleaner, temporary resident, and single parent in Canada.
To answer that, I have to start with social silences.
Social Silences
Systems measure what people say. They ignore what never makes it into surveys, reports, or polite conversations, even when that’s what decides who breaks and who makes it through.
Christian Madsbjerg calls this “social silences” – the real data in what doesn’t happen and what isn’t said. This lab exists to make those silences visible while I am still inside them.
The silences I’m making visible
Newcomers who say “I’m integrating well” while quietly thinking: I don’t belong here, I’m drowning, my permit stress is crushing me.
Precariat workers who say “I’m fine, it’s just work” while their bodies are breaking down at 18,900 reps a shift.
What I’m building in this lab
Right now this lab holds two live experiments built from inside that reality. I test everything on my own life first. If it doesn’t hold under precarity, it doesn’t belong here:
Mutual‑aid experiment:
Kingston NetworkBuddy
A peer‑led mutual aid for newcomers who are drowning quietly while pretending to integrate well.
Body‑infrastructure experiment:
Exhausted Bodies
A body infrastructure for precariat manual workers whose pain has been treated as the price of a paycheck.
Meet the founder:
Hi, I’m Maan Gail Manigsaca (mah-ahn 🇵🇭).
And I think most systems are built around people who already belong.
They assume you know the language, understand the forms, can spare the time, and have a body that isn’t already being consumed by work.
I build from the opposite side—mid‑crossing — inside the social silences and invisible strain of people who are still trying to get in.
For ten years, I was a gym owner and personal trainer in the Philippines. My time, my body, and my recovery were under my control, and the conditions around me were set up for lower mortality. In 2022, I immigrated to Canada as an international student, leaving my 8‑year‑old son and my husband behind. I landed in temporary status and commercial cleaning work—some days no shifts, some days 6+ hours and about 18,900 repetitive movements per night. My body became inflamed and unpredictable, and the life I’d built my confidence on disappeared.
That’s the vantage point from which Kingston NetworkBuddy and Exhausted Bodies were built. In 2023, Kingston NetworkBuddy began as a peer‑led mutual aid experiment so international students, newcomers, and denizens wouldn’t have to walk into rooms alone. It has since reached 500+ participants and earned local and national recognition while staying tied to real human capacity, not institutional promises.
Exhausted Bodies grew out of my own breakdown—a body‑infrastructure lab for manual workers whose pain has been treated as the price of a paycheck. I’m testing mid‑shift pain‑control protocols and tools like a Strain Calculator on my own cleaning shifts first, because by the time most workers get off work, the damage is already done.
This site doesn’t present a finished framework. It’s a plain‑text lab notebook from a denizen whose body is still paying the price of work and status, who is still unsure how the story ends. If the strain underneath your own role—worker, newcomer, institution, or researcher—feels similar, this is a place where that silence is treated as real data, not a side note.