The presented paper reintroduces the concept of ‘social disability’ as a framework to analyze political violence by applying it to the ongoing occupation and genocide against the Palestinian peoples. Drawing on disability justice, crip theory, and decolonial studies, the authors explore how systems of power position certain identities and bodyminds as deficient, incapable, and undeserving of full personhood, thereby producing cycles of disablement and debility. We argue that the social construction of Palestinian identity, framed as inherently flawed, facilitates their marginalization and the normalization of violence against them and serves as a colonial strategy. This framework aims to shift the focus from individual rights to collective liberation, advocating for intersectional solidarity and resistance against oppressive structures.
Disability and genocide are entangled. Historic and ongoing genocide cases show how persons with disabilities may be intentionally targeted during political violence, or impairment may be produced as a genocidal strategy. Using Israel’s colonisation of Palestine as a case study, we discuss how disability and genocide intertwine as part of the ‘settler colonial project’. We identify a two-pronged disablement strategy: creating disability in the population and disabling State functions. These two processes, bottom-up and top-down disablement, are designed to create impairment in the people and their State. By exploring the complex interplay between disability and State violence during genocide, we can better anticipate the challenges to rebuilding in a manner that includes persons with disabilities and their contributions to the social, political, and economic dimensions of their recovering State. ا لملخص تتشابك الإعاقة والإبادة الجماعية. تُظهر حالات الإبادة الجماعية التاريخي ة والمستمرة كيف يمكن استهداف الأشخاص ذوي الإعاقة بشكل متعمد أثناء العنف السياسي، أو كيف يمكن إنتاج الإعاقة كاستراتيجية إبادة جماعية. باستخدام الاستعمار الإسرائيلي لفلسطين مشروع الاستيطان الاستعماري « كدراسة حالة، نناقش كيف تتداخل الإعاقة والإبادة الجماعية خلال الصراع الاستعماري كجزء من «. نحدد استراتيجي ة تعطيل مزدوج ة: إحداث الإعاقة في الناس في صفوف السكان وتعطيل وظائف الدولة. هاتان العمليتان، التعطيل من أسفل إلى أعلى ومن أعلى إلى أسفل، صُ ممتا لإحداث القصور في الناس ودولتهم صُ ممتا لإضعاف الناس ودولتهم أو صُ ممتا لإحداث العجز بين الناس وإضعاف دولتهم. ومن خلال استكشاف التفاعل المعقد بين الإعاقة وعنف الدولة أثناء الإبادة الجماعية، يمكننا توقع التحديات التي تواجه إعادة البناء بشكل أفضل، بطريقة تشمل الأشخاص ذوي الإعاقة ومساهماتهم في الأبعاد الاجتماعية والسياسية والاقتصادية لدولتهم المتعافي ة
This article examines the representation of disability and trauma within the context of the 1994 Rwandan genocide through a comparative literary analysis of Boubacar Boris Diop’s Murambi, The Book of Bones (2006)1 and Véronique Tadjo’s The Shadow of Imana (2002).2 Both texts are products of the 1998 project ‘Rwanda: écrire par devoir de mémoire’ (Rwanda: Writing as a Duty to Memory).3 It argues that the authors employ distinctive narrative strategies to grapple with the genocide’s legacy. Read in the context of disability studies, Diop’s polyvocal novel deconstructs Western perceptions of the genocide as an irrational “tribal” conflict by foregrounding the calculated, bureaucratic rationality of evil embodied by Dr. Karekezi. Conversely, Tadjo’s testimonial travelogue utilizes physical disability, particularly blindness and muteness, as a central metaphor for the psychological trauma that inhibits both memory and reconciliation.
This paper examines the genocide in Gaza as a critical site for theorizing the intersection of settler colonialism, disability, and gender. It advances the premise that settler colonialism is a structure, not an event, manifesting through ongoing processes of erasure, dispossession, and bodily governance. Moving beyond frameworks that quantify violence solely through death tolls, the paper argues that the Zionist settler colonial regime enacts genocide through mechanisms of disablement that are deeply gendered. Drawing on decolonial disability research and Native feminist theories, this paper highlights how Palestinian women with disabilities face compounded forms of violence while underscoring the urgency of dismantling settler colonial structures that produce disability as a strategy of elimination. The paper further affirms the necessity of decolonizing disability studies, positioning Palestinian liberation as integral to disability justice and offering insights that extend beyond the Palestinian context to global struggles against ableist, gendered, and settler colonial violence.
