A Disability Justice Primer
Full Title
Author(s)
Centering Voices
Year of Publication
Media Type
Media Access
The complete publication of Skin, Tooth and Bone is available in a digitally accessible download, and print version.
Usefulness to Educators
This is a foundational text from the Disability Justice movement. It outlines the 10 Principles of Disability Justice and offers guidance on topics ranging from coordinating access at public events to solidarity with other anti-oppression movements and liberatory understandings of disability.
Premise
Disability Justice is an essential evolution from the disability rights movement. It centers lives that were made invisible in the disability rights movement, specifically “the lives of disabled people of color, immigrants with disabilities, disabled people who practice marginalized religions (in particular those experiencing the violence of anti-Islamic beliefs and actions), queers with disabilities, trans and gender non-conforming people with disabilities, people with disabilities who are houseless, people with disabilities who are incarcerated, people with disabilities who have had their ancestral lands stolen, amongst others.”
This text represents a living framework written by and for artists and activists leading the disability justice movement.
Purpose
To offer a mission and framework for the disability Justice movement:
All bodies are unique and essential.
All bodies have strengths and needs that must be met.
We are powerful, not despite the complexities of our bodies, but because of them.
All bodies are confined by ability, race, gender, sexuality, class, nation state, religion, and more, and we cannot separate them.
Research Methods
NA
Conceptual or Theoretical Frameworks
Disability Justice framework
Reference with Published Abstract (when available)
Points of Connection
The 10 Principles of Disability Justice (see linked video for principles translated into ASL):
- Intersectionality
- Leadership of Those Most Impacted
- Anti-Capitalist Politics
- Cross-Movement Solidarity
- Recognizing Wholeness
- Sustainability
- Commitment to Cross-Disability Solidarity
- Interdependence
- Collective Access
- Collective Liberation
In this we see another articulation of what Alice Shepard and Lisa Meloçon discuss, that utilitarian access is not enough. We want more.
Melonçon talks about agency and respect in the classroom, hooks talks about joy and wellbeing in the classroom, and Shepard and Zdenek challenge us to move differently and think creatively about access to imagine what’s beyond access. Here, the Disability Justice framework gives us a bridge to image from.
The theme of interdependence that is taken up by Palmeri and others, and is a core consideration for how assistive technology functions alongside mainstream technology in social learning environments is also a core consideration of the movement.
Points of Contention
NA
Leave a Reply