♿Imagine... Native Voices Leading Disability Justice♿
💡 Imagined Endstate:
A future where disability justice reflects the wisdom, culture, and values of Indigenous communities—where Native voices are no longer footnotes but architects of inclusive systems that honor ancestral knowledge, interdependence, and holistic wellbeing.
📚 Source:
Hemmings, A., & Nicholas, C. (2023). Reclaiming Indigenous Disability Justice. Disability Discourses: National Journal, 4(1), Article 5. Utah State University. Link
💥 What’s the Big Deal:
Mainstream disability frameworks often overlook Native understandings of wellness, relationality, and justice🌱. This powerful article reclaims space for Indigenous perspectives in disability discourse, asserting that Western models—rooted in individualism and deficit—fail to resonate with Indigenous worldviews centered on community, spirit, and land🪶.
Hemmings and Nicholas argue that true disability justice for Indigenous peoples must be decolonial, healing, and culturally grounded. It must address not just the individual experience of disability, but the collective impact of colonization, historical trauma, and intergenerational exclusion🌍. This approach calls for more than accommodations—it demands indigenous sovereignty, self-determined care systems, and the full recognition of Native knowledge as essential to justice and liberation.
For PI-SIDS and other Indigenous communities, this reorientation offers a path to build disability-inclusive futures that reflect cultural truth and land-based connection🤝—not imposed compliance with external norms. Let’s amplify Native voices, re-center traditional wisdom, and build systems where everyone belongs.
#DisabilityJustice, #IndigenousLeadership, #DecolonizeDisability, #Sovereignty, #PacificVoices, #RelationalHealing, #InclusiveFutures, #IMSPARK,