Disability and Environmental Political Theories

• In Event: Changing Perspective: Through the Lens of Disabiity

Abstract

This paper considers environmentalism from a disability perspective, and vice versa, with a particular focus on recent work in environmental political theory. Disability is rarely even mentioned, much less engaged, by environmental political theory. Yet disability studies has long maintained that disability is not a condition of bodies, but rather of the lack of receptivity of human-made environments to certain kinds of bodies: for instance, architecture that adopts stairs instead of slopes or ramps disables bodies that use wheelchairs for mobility. Similarly, the human-made environment can cause disabling impairments, both directly, such as when landmines blow off limbs, or when fetal exposure to air pollution causes developmental disabilities in children, and secondarily, such as when flooding caused by rising sea levels and more intense hurricanes such as Florence make wheelchair mobility impossible. Insofar as Steven Vogel is correct that the “natural” environment is always already “built”—specifically, shaped, determined and defined by the Anthropocene--then the insights of disability studies can make important contributions to the environmental political theory literature. A disability perspective also proposes very specific challenges and questions to the norms of environmental theory. Ableism can result from environmentalist efforts at sustainability, such as the elimination of plastic straws which are helpful to enabling people with upper body impairments to drink fluids. Similarly, attempts to ameliorate the disabling effects of specific impairments can appear to harm the “natural” environment, such as when hardscape surfaces are built in natural spaces like beaches or forests to enhance access for mobility impairments. Can efforts toward sustainability and toward disability accommodation be reconciled or are they inevitably at odds? Is environmentalism as it is practiced and expressed in the twenty-first century disableist? Will disabled persons be sacrificed on the altar of consequentialism—as often happens in political theories of justice—in the face of global disaster, as some recent environmental political theory implies? Answers to these questions depend on the theoretical values and principles underlying our approach to environmental problems, which, I argue, are largely disableist, and in this paper I seek to provide an overview of the two fields to identify points of tension and complementarity, with an eye toward how environmental political theory can move forward on questions of disability.

Author

• Nancy J. Hirschmann, The University of Pennsylvania