A narrow definition of disability is unable to capture various instances of chronic debilitation: how racialised and migrant workers are subjected to disabling immigration regimes and working conditions, how we are collectively incapacitated by capitalism, how entire populations are debilitated by neocolonialism or imperialism, or how entire populations are sentenced to “slow death” through a withholding of healthcare, housing, food and water.
A more expansive view of disability, or a framework of debility, allows us to understand how these capitalist, imperialist and neo-colonial border regimes deliberately target marginalised populations. These regimes subject marginalised groups to violence and neglect, and force them into debilitating living and working conditions that make them susceptible to future disability, and exacerbate existing disabilities.
This Disability Pride Month, we must include those debilitated by capitalism, imperialism, neo-colonialism and bordering into our activism. We must decolonise and widen our understanding of disability, and fight against the colonial and imperial forces that subject marginalised groups to gradual debilitation. None of us are free until all of us are free.
Find out more by reading our zine on Disability and Migration here.