By Sarah Bell
When considered in climate policy, disabled people are typically homogenized as climate “victims;” a framing that does little to address the social or political conditions that create these circumstances or to recognize the potential contributions of disabled people as knowledgeable agents of change.
This piece highlights the failure to recognize the knowledges of disabled people as a form of epistemic injustice, whereby the capacity of disabled people as knowers or “epistemic agents” that produce, use and/or transmit knowledge is repeatedly misrecognized or undermined.
Understanding epistemic injustice
Epistemic injustice may occur when a listener disregards the knowledge contributions of a speaker because of their own prejudices; a form of testimonial injustice. The cumulative effects of being disregarded in this way can result in testimonial smothering, whereby the speaker withdraws from such situations altogether; either through an expectation of being overlooked or through losing confidence in one’s knowledge.
Testimonial injustice can lead to hermeneutical injustice when the knowledges of unfairly discredited individuals are repeatedly excluded from collective processes of knowledge production, and when people are denied meaningful opportunities to develop terms/concepts to articulate their experiences in ways that are recognized and respected.
The societal emphasis on knowledge that can be communicated and documented in words is itself a form of expressive hermeneutical injustice. It fails to recognize the epistemic agency of people with embodied, tacit and affective knowledges that may not be communicated linguistically. An expansion in communicative practices is needed to recognize the significance of knowledges expressed via touch, body language, facial expressions or gestures, for example.
Epistemic injustice, disability, and climate change
Drawing on the five conditions set out by Byskov and Hyams (2022), it is clear that the exclusion of disabled people from collective processes of climate change meaning-making, interpretation and practice constitutes a form of epistemic injustice.
The stakeholder condition: disabled people are disproportionately affected by climate change, with unnecessary situations of vulnerability created through exclusion from climate change response planning. For example, people with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions are more susceptible to the detrimental impacts of wildfire smoke, and wheelchair users are more likely to live in flood-risk, ground floor, level access properties. Yet, in the face of extreme weather events, the needs and priorities of disabled people have been repeatedly overlooked in the provision of evacuation warnings, emergency transport, shelters and health care.
The disadvantage condition: the exclusion of disabled people from climate change planning/policy is creating new socio-economic disadvantages. For example, measures implemented to reduce carbon emissions can impact disproportionately on disabled people, such as the introduction of Clean Air Zones. While these may reduce air pollution and the risk of respiratory illness, cars with more efficient technology and adaptive cycles can be prohibitively expensive for disabled people, who often already experience disabling barriers to employment and income generation. Without providing suitable transport alternatives, the introduction of such zones in urban centers reflects a form of eco-ableism, creating new disabling barriers to employment, health care and other key forms of societal participation.
The prejudice condition: prejudiced, stereotypical ideas about the capacities of disabled people are undermining opportunities to recognize and respect disability knowledges in climate change policy/practice. For example, an analysis of user comments on YouTube videos linked to autistic climate activist Greta Thunberg identifies the use of ableist (as well as sexist and ageist) tropes to discredit her expertise and perpetuate harmful disability stereotypes.
The epistemic condition: disabled people may possess overlooked knowledge and experience that could improve climate change scholarship and decision-making. As discussed by climate, health and disability researcher Pauline Castres (2022: 1), disabled people are “experts” in “collaboration, creativity, collective resilience and resourcefulness.” These are essential skills in the face of climate change and are often under-developed in people who “fit” smoothly into the world. As argued by feminist scholar Sara Ahmed (2017: 237), “when a whole world is organised to promote your survival, from health to education, to the walls designed to keep your residence safe, to the paths that ease your travel, you do not have become so inventive to survive.”
The socio-economic condition: disabled people often experience intersecting forms of social inequality that exacerbate experiences of epistemic exclusion. The ordering of the global economy around the relentless pursuit of economic growth is a key driver of climate change, while also debilitating and disabling (often racialized, classed, gendered) laboring bodies. Without embedding disability knowledges in efforts to transform such systems — and the extractive, exploitative logic that underpins them — prominent climate change responses will fail to address these processes of debilitation or to support the growing numbers of people experiencing impairment and disability in the face of climate change.
Concluding reflections
In July 2019, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on climate change and disability rights, which called on governments to adopt a disability-inclusive approach to climate adaptation. In doing so, it reiterated obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) to actively involve disabled people in decision-making on matters that affect their lives, including climate change. To bring about meaningful change through such resolutions and human rights frameworks, however, it is essential to recognize disabled people as valued epistemic agents; to counter and challenge the conditions of epistemic injustice that undermine such efforts; and to call out the social, economic and political processes that undermine the realization of climate justice for all.
Sarah Bell is a Senior Lecturer in Health Geography at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health (ECEHH).
