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Disability and Indigeneity: intersectionality of identity from the experience of Indigenous people at a global level

GILROY, John
UTTJEK, Margaretha
LOVERN, Lavonna
WARD, John
2021

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The authors of this paper have protested, fought, written extensively and represent the broader theoretical foundations of Indigenous and disability research by focusing on their standpoint perspectives informed by their ancestral spirits and knowledge. Based on our knowledge, cultures, and advocacy skills, this paper collectively explores and compares the intersections of Indigeneity and disability as an embodied identity in four countries: USA, Canada, Sweden, and Australia. This is accomplished by beginning with a brief synopsis of colonization to provide context and then examine the consequences of Western assimilation practices, including academic support of the Western status quo. The paper will then turn to the impact of both colonization and academic constructs on Indigenous epistemologies and ideas of self in disability dialogues. Finally, the paper will focus on Indigenous concepts of difference to not only advance Western disability discussions, but also as a way for Western dialogue to overcome its predilection to hierarchical binaries.

Precarious Bodies, Precarious Lives: Framing Disability in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Cinema

GARRETT, Victoria
2019

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Alejandro González Iñárritu is a salient example of contemporary Latin American directors who portray sick or disabled bodies as a visual and affective shorthand for different forms of violence. This article explores the relationship between his signature intersecting plots that join seemingly disconnected social spheres in a shared precariousness and his portrayal of illness, injury, and disability to suggest the violence and inequality that underpin these connections. I argue that González Iñárritu’s films frequently represent injured and disabled bodies to expose invisible connections that make social injustice possible as evidence of his using film as a political or ethical intervention that might erode the way contemporary global capitalism reproduces coloniality in everyday life. At the same time, his films illustrate the pitfalls of utilizing disabled bodies to realize this critique, thus shedding light on the ethical dimensions of this tendency to link disability with a critique of violence.

 

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2019, Vol. 6 No. 1

Audiology and speech-language pathology: Practitioners’ reflections on indigeneity, disability and neo-colonial marketing

PILLAY, Mershen
KATHARD, Harsha
2018

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Indigenous peoples are part of those populations who are underserved by Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology. They include minority world populations like Aboriginal Australians/Canadians and majority world peoples in Asia, Africa and the Americas. How do Western-oriented rehabilitation/disability practitioners practice with Others? In this article, we reflect on our own experiences and use ideological critique to reveal the fault lines in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology practices. Along with other examples, we analyse South African data, viz.: canonical articles as illuminators and our works (c1990-). We reveal predominant practices/ideologies that contribute to the production of disability. We focus on three interconnected issues (i) the construction of rehabilitation/disability practitioners as (il)legitimate providers for indigenous peoples; (ii) the engagement of epistemic violence across disability practice, educational and policy domains; and (iii) the authoritative (re)inscription of indigenous persons as disabled by transnational practitioners who, like their corporate counterparts, market practices. Professional marketeering is infused with bigotry, masked as benevolence and resourced/justified by global, neo-liberal policies (e.g., international conventions) and funding. We conclude that disability practices and indigeneity in the post-colonial moment capitalises on established settler-native relationships to continue dominance over Others’ lives. Finally, we present a way forward, namely the relationship of Labouring Affinities which promotes deimperialisation and decolonisation practices to enable professional transformation.

 

Disability and the Global South, 2018, Vol.5, No. 2

‘Ask us what we need’: Operationalizing Guidance on Disability Inclusion in Refugee and Displaced Persons Programs

PEARCE, Emma
2015

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Persons with disabilities remain one of the most vulnerable and socially excluded groups in any displaced community. Barriers to accessing humanitarian assistance programs increase their protection risks, including risk of violence, abuse and exploitation. Women’s Refugee Commission has been supporting the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and implementing partners to translate guidance on disability inclusion into practice at field levels through the provision of technical support to eight country operations. In the course of the project, WRC has consulted with over 600 persons with disabilities and care-givers and over 130 humanitarian actors in displacement contexts. Key protection concerns identified include a lack of participation in community decision making; stigma and discrimination of children and young persons with disabilities by their non-disabled peers; violence against persons with disabilities, including gender-based violence; lack of access to disabilityspecific health care; and unmet basic needs among families of persons with multiple impairments. Suggested strategies to further advance disability inclusion in humanitarian programming include: strengthening identification of protection risks and case management services for persons with disabilities; facilitating contextspecific action planning around key guidelines; and engaging the disability movement in advocacy on refugee issues.

 

Disability and the Global South (DGS), 2015, Vol. 2 No. 1

Childhood Sexual Abuse and Disability: A critical study of an invisibilized constituency in India

VAIDYA, Shruti
2015

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This paper explores childhood sexual abuse as understood by disabled individuals from their particular locations. The paper reports on qualitative research with disabled adults identifying themselves as survivors/victims of childhood sexual abuse. In the Indian context, Childhood sexual abuse has been understood in a monolithic way, erasing all differences that exist among children from different social locations. The paper attempts to provide an alternative perspective by focusing on the specificities of the experiences of disabled persons. The textual sources examined in the paper investigate the concept of childhood, disability and sexuality and their interconnections, both in the Western and the Indian context. Discourses that construct children as passive and ignorant make it important to provide narratives which capture strategies of resistance within power structures which constrain choices. This paper makes an attempt to document and analyze the experiences of disabled individuals who have undergone childhood sexual abuse within the larger context of Indian laws, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which engage with the concept and reportage and which represent dominant views on Childhood sexual abuse and disabilities.

 

Disability and the Global South (DGS), 2015, Vol. 2 No. 2

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