Colonialism and the Rupturing of Indigenous Worldviews of Impairment and Relational Interdependence: A Beginning Dialogue towards Reclamation and Social Transformation

Impairment is a universal phenomenon, but it is given vastly different meanings in societies with differing cultural, political and economic structures. Understandings of impairment from Indigenous worldviews are grounded in a respect for the profound interdependency of all life in all its diversity and difference, bound together in a spider web of relations. Following Erevelles’ (2011) exposition of disability as a sociopolitical construct created as a means of patrolling the boundaries of citizenship through the control and manipulation of the constructed Other within a neocolonial state, I show how from the time of European contact onward, a Eurocentric interpretation of “disability” as an inherent lack of production-oriented capacity (and thus a deviation from valued, normative standards) has influenced understandings of impairment and disability within Indigenous societies in North America. This has marginalized people with impairments, and also forms part of a larger colonial project of assigning negative values to all forms of diversity and difference, marking them as deviations and as essentially synonymous with “disability. ” At the same time, colonial relations of oppression and domination are responsible for conditions that give rise to both impairment and disability. I argue that the renewal and recentering of Indigenous worldview understandings of impairment and disability would support transformational change in our society through the power of interdependency and respectful relationships. Keywords: Indigenous worldview; Eurocentric worldview; personalism; impairment, disability; interdependency L’incapacite est un phenomene universel, mais peut avoir des sens enormement diverses dans des societes ayant des structures culturelles, politiques et economiques differentes. Les definitions de l’incapacite suivant une conception du monde autochtones sont basees dans un profound respect pour les differences et la diversite de tout vie a travers des rapports tissant entre eux une veritable toile d’araignee de relations interdependantes. J’utilise le concept du handicap comme construction sociopolitique que propose Erevelles (2011), cree afin de patrouiller les frontieres de la citoyennete a travers le controle et la manipulation de la constitution de “l’autre” a l’interieure des limites de l’etat neo-coloniale. Je demontre que depuis les premiers contacts avec les Europeens, la conception de l’incapacite et du handicap des societes autochtones en Amerique du nord a ete influence par une interpretation eurocentrique de “handicap” en tant qu’un manque de la capacite de production. Ceci a marginalizees les personnes handicapees, et de plus, fait partie d’un projet coloniale plus vaste, qui consiste a assigner des valeurs negatives a toutes formes de diversite et de differences, les marquant commes des deviations de la norme, et qui sont essentiellement presentees comme synonyme de “handicap”. En meme temps, les relations neo-coloniales d’oppression et de domination sont responsables de creees les conditions qui engendre l’incapacite et le handicap. Je propose que renouveller et recentrer les conceptions autochtones du handicap et de l’incapacite servivrait a soutenir les changements transfromateurs grace a la puissance des relations respectueuses et interdependantes. Mots-cles: conception du monde autochtone; conception du monde eurocentrique; personalisme; universalisme; normalite; interdependance