New Chapter on Complex Erasures: Re/Production of Disability Under Settler Colonialism

Kaitlyn Pothier and Kathryn Currie Reinders recently published a chapter in Canadian Settler Colonialism: Reliving the Past, Opening New Paths called “Complex Erasures: Re/Production of Disability Under Settler Colonialism.” The authors used their experience as Live Work Well Research Centre (LWWRC) graduate research assistants on a shadow report for the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons of Disabilities (UNCRPD) to explore how colonial perspectives of disability do not account for Indigenous women, girls, or 2SLGBTQQIA people with disabilities.  

The LWWRC was commissioned to draft a shadow report which would explore the question: what are key potential issues for Indigenous women, girls, and gender-diverse people with disabilities with regard to the implementation of the UNCRPD in Canada? The shadow report ultimately found a large disconnect between how Indigenous knowledge systems and Western knowledge systems understand disability. 

Discussions around disability often overlook how colonialism, gender, and disability are connected. Many Indigenous languages do not have a word for disability. Instead, disability may be understood as a defining characteristic of one’s lived experience, as having been given different gifts from the Creator, being a teacher, or being closer to the spirit world.  Comparatively, Western society views disability through two different models. The medical model sees a disabled person as having a set of symptoms or impairments in need of treatment while the social model argues that disability comes from barriers within society which prevent disabled individuals from fully participating in their communities. 

However, Kaitlyn and Kathryn were introduced to a third model: the political model. Coined by Dr. Lynn Gehl, this view asserts that disability arises from political tensions between Indigenous nations and Canada. This model asserts that politics is what prevents sufficient support for Indigenous women, girls, or 2SLGBTQQIA people with disabilities. It is colonial violence that upholds sexism in the Indian Act, continues land divestment, and refuses the care and treatment of Indigenous people with disabilities. 

The political model is not used in the shadow report that Kaitlyn and Kathryn worked on for the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. However, in their chapter they recognize a certain tension between various human rights treaties that make it difficult for Indigenous women, girls, or 2SLGBTQQIA people with disabilities to advocate for themselves. These marginalized people must pick which identity they’d like to fight for: their identity as an Indigenous person, as a woman, as a queer person, and as a disabled person are all being compromised. However, most frameworks limit Indigenous women, girls, or 2SLGBTQQIA people with disabilities to justice under only one of their identities, ignoring intersectionality entirely. 

Kaitlyn and Kathryn address the conflicting understandings of disability between Western and Indigenous knowledge systems. Their work represents one aspect of research that the LWWRC continues to perform in an effort to better understand the intersectionality of disability, access, and inclusion. Read the full chapter on the University of Regina online catalogue.