Dis/abled decolonial human and citizen futures

Abstract

This article utilises the dual methodological lens of disability and decolonisation in order to critically examine, in interdisicplinary and global perspective, what it will mean to be both a ‘human’ and a ‘citizen’ in the 21st century. I propose the development of an epistemological framework and methodology of the dis/abling and decolonising of knowledge on humanness and citizenship in order to anticipate demographic, environmental, and technological futures. Firstly, I critically examine how critical disability approaches challenge the able-ist premises of liberal political theory. Secondly, by critically analysing US immigration and US/UK eugenics movements, I illustrate the able-ist, raced, and colonial constructs of human-ness and citizenship using a dual decolonial and disability methodological lens. Finally, I look towards anticipating human and citizen futures through the case of artificial intelligence, where I illustrate both its reification of a raced and able-ist status quo on the one hand, and the potential for changing terrains of the bounds of human-ness and citizenship.