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This chapter explores the need for Indigenous leadership in the Canadian disability movement. I posit that the low level of interest among Indigenous leaders for this movement is because of differing belief systems on health and disability between settlers and Indigenous people and the movement’s tacit presumption of settler privilege. It is also noted that Indigeneity is a highly intersectional identity, and there are many shared practices between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities regarding beliefs on medicine, healing, and ways to a good life. I review the gray literature of 13 Indigenous and Canadian disability organizations and see whether the content aligns or differs from our thesis. The nine Indigenous organizations contained some consistent themes regarding the further marginalization of Indigenous folks with disabilities compared with non-Indigenous disabled people. Only one out of the four Canadian disability organizations I studied provided content on Indigenous leadership—namely, treaty and sui generis rights, Indigenous concepts of physical and spiritual difference and exceptionalities, and Indigenous views of intersectionality. The three disability organizations focused on rights based on Canadian parliamentary and civil law procedure. The implications of Indigenous leadership for the disability movement and that movement’s possible role in the practice of Land Back—the restoration of Indigenous rights, laws, and relations to earth, water, air, and the plant and animal kingdoms—are explored at the end of the chapter. To start, I hope the disability movement can start to engage with Indigenous ideas and worldviews, facilitating a better, more fruitful conversation between the settler-dominated movement and Indigenous knowledge holders and community members. Paraphrasing Anishinaabe lawyer John Borrows, a better conversation can fill in the gaps between disability rights and Indigenous notions of leadership and inclusion. I conclude the disability movement should seek constitutional relationships with Indigenous polities and legal systems to be both anticolonial and for facilitating greater freedom and resiliency in the movement itself. Also, there is a need to clearly define Indigenous disability and quantify more precisely how many Indigenous people experience disability.

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Land Back, Indigenous Constitutionalism, and the Canadian Disability Movement

  • 章节

  • 发表日期：

    2026年

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  • Walter Wai Tak Chan

摘要

This chapter explores the need for Indigenous leadership in the Canadian disability movement. I posit that the low level of interest among Indigenous leaders for this movement is because of differing belief systems on health and disability between settlers and Indigenous people and the movement’s tacit presumption of settler privilege. It is also noted that Indigeneity is a highly intersectional identity, and there are many shared practices between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities regarding beliefs on medicine, healing, and ways to a good life. I review the gray literature of 13 Indigenous and Canadian disability organizations and see whether the content aligns or differs from our thesis. The nine Indigenous organizations contained some consistent themes regarding the further marginalization of Indigenous folks with disabilities compared with non-Indigenous disabled people. Only one out of the four Canadian disability organizations I studied provided content on Indigenous leadership—namely, treaty and sui generis rights, Indigenous concepts of physical and spiritual difference and exceptionalities, and Indigenous views of intersectionality. The three disability organizations focused on rights based on Canadian parliamentary and civil law procedure. The implications of Indigenous leadership for the disability movement and that movement’s possible role in the practice of Land Back—the restoration of Indigenous rights, laws, and relations to earth, water, air, and the plant and animal kingdoms—are explored at the end of the chapter. To start, I hope the disability movement can start to engage with Indigenous ideas and worldviews, facilitating a better, more fruitful conversation between the settler-dominated movement and Indigenous knowledge holders and community members. Paraphrasing Anishinaabe lawyer John Borrows, a better conversation can fill in the gaps between disability rights and Indigenous notions of leadership and inclusion. I conclude the disability movement should seek constitutional relationships with Indigenous polities and legal systems to be both anticolonial and for facilitating greater freedom and resiliency in the movement itself. Also, there is a need to clearly define Indigenous disability and quantify more precisely how many Indigenous people experience disability.