Envisioning Disabled and Just Futures: Mutual Aid as an Adaptive Strategy for Environmental Change and Ecological Disablement

Abstract

Climate change and numerous other environmental catastrophes, both swift and slowly unfolding, are mass disabling events for humans, nonhuman animals, and ecosystems. How can we develop a praxis of indispensability within our own communities as we face the impacts of climate change? We bring critical environmental justice into closer conversation with critical disability studies and disability justice by drawing on concepts such as eco-ability, ecological disablement, and disabled ecologies. We present examples of disabled mutual aid groups and networks of care, often comprised of people with multiple marginalized identities, to explore how mutual aid can serve as an adaptive strategy for climate and environmental change by increasing community resilience, especially for those subject to routine state violence and neglect.