Going back to higher education and pursuing an M.A.—this time with an ocean separating home from university, rather than a three-hour commute with frequently delayed trains—has definitely brought back memories, joys, and challenges of what it means to be in conversation with texts and fellow students (and, let’s be honest too, the stress deadlines bring with them). It has also helped me draw attention to the learning process: How do we build on previous knowledge? How do new readings engage in conversation with things we know? How do we keep re-evaluating it? Thinking about these questions inevitably also makes me wonder about the incommensurability and ever-expanding nature of knowledge—this is, after all, the joy and challenge I treasure most. Now that the class has finished and this assignment prompts me to look back at what I have learned, I realize that most of the concepts and ideas have been new to me and some built on what I had learned in previous courses. As I mentioned in previous reflections, I felt that I was learning a lot as each week went by. While I will list now 10 things I have learned throughout the course, this list is only a glimpse of my personal and academic learnings. Each item represents not just knowledge gained, but also connections made, perspectives shifted, and ideas that will continue to shape my thinking moving forward. Let’s start.

1. Everyone has access needs
   In the course, I learned about the concept of access needs for the first time. It was the first time, too, that someone asked what my access needs are and that I devoted some time to thinking about them in relation to myself. I also learned that access needs are not just for disabled people. They are universal. And, as Sins Invalid reminds us, we can share the responsibility of addressing everyone’s (2019, p. 30).

2. We should go beyond the medical model of disability and disability rights-based approach to adopt a justice-centered framework
   First and foremost, I learned about disability justice as a movement, approach, and way of relating to one another. Prior to this course, my knowledge of disability was predominantly centered on the framework of disability rights and I had almost no grasp of the demands and guiding principles of the Disability Justice movement. I have been able to learn about its transformative approach, which challenges dominant paradigms around normativity and disability and foregrounds collective liberation. I also realized the importance of transcending the medical model of disability, which narrowly locates the issue within the individual, to instead shift the focus to pervasive ableism structuring social inequities and biopolitical hierarchies.

3. Accessibility encompasses many areas
   Before starting the course, my understanding of accessibility was mainly restricted to specific measures such as Sign Language interpretation, removing physical barriers, ensuring wheelchair-accessible spaces, adding Alt-text to social media posts, and masking... Now, I recognize accessibility as a far more complex and multilayered concept—one that must be integrated from the very beginning of any process, including leadership, event planning, execution, and communication, amongst others. As Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha argues, “disability justice is about more than adding access. It is also about shifting power” (n.d., p. 15). I have also learned that there are many free resources available online to audit an event, organization, etc., and determine what actions are being taken and which ones could be taken to center disability justice politics. In my next projects or jobs, I would like to make use of this resource.

4. Leadership of the most impacted is central to generating truly transformative spaces and communities
   This learning is closely linked to the previous one. Those who are most affected by the system we fight against should be those who lead the struggle, establishing their needs, goals, and strategies. While this might seem obvious, I have seen many organizations that work with disabled communities, organize activities, or make policies addressed to disabled people, usually led by non-disabled people—who are, in turn, those establishing what they believe should be prioritized. This often leads to solutions that overlook the real and specific needs of the people they aim to “support”. It reinforces a dynamic of power and control that doesn't dismantle, but instead perpetuates the same systems of marginalization and exclusion.

5. Eugenics is more present in our lives than I had thought
   Ideas around who deserves to live and who doesn’t and who deserves to reproduce and who doesn’t are biopolitical regimes very much present in our societies. Before taking this course, I hadn’t thought much about how the narrative of the “survival of the fittest” informs present-day attitudes and government policies, such as how disaster relief aid is distributed and managed. Learning more about eugenics has prompted me to think about the ethical dimensions of some of my ideas and everyday practices, too. “Disability justice means acknowledging eugenics as a genocide”, as limón said.

6. Understandings of disability are not universal and disability is not a marker of differentiation in all cultures
   Thanks to various readings, I learned that notions of disability are linked to specific discourses around what is considered “normal”—how we categorize disabled bodies and how disability is regarded collectively and addressed institutionally is embedded within “modern-colonial mechanistic discourses and paradigms on disability (normo-technocentric), intertwined with mono/multiculturalist and racist views of Indigenous peoples” (Yarza de los Ríos & Zoila Romualdo Pérez, 2021, p. 165). I found it very interesting learning about how some Indigenous communities understand “disability” and how they do not deem it as a marker of social and cultural differentiation.

7. Mestizaje is also entrenched with narratives of (dis)ability and race
   This learning has been made possible by the conversations we had last semester around the concept of mestizaje and the problematic ways in which this discourse has been institutionally, historically, politically, and culturally used. The introduction by Soni Coráñez-Bolton of their book Crip Colony and the session he led were extremely illuminating in understanding mestizaje as an ideology that constructs certain racialized bodies as disabled. As Coráñez-Bolton argues, “mestizaje is itself a racial ideology of ability marking a preference for able-bodied and able-mindedness aligned with the colonial project. [...] mestizaje is a liberal form of colonial ableism that adapts a preference for able-bodiedness through the projection and representation of a queerly deviant Indian in dire need of reform and rehabilitation” (2023, p. 7). This session was also very interesting because I learned a lot about the Philippines and it reminded me of how in Spain the colonial past in the Philippines is silenced and excluded from official narratives, textbooks, etc. (teachers usually mention that Spain “lost the colonies” in the “Desastre del 98”...). I now would like to learn more about the history of the archipelago!

8. Interdependence is everything!
   While this might seem a simple statement, in this course I meaningfully learned about the importance of interdependence. We ought to imagine and build worlds where everyone is valued, regardless of how and what they can produce, and we should be ready to unlearn. The struggle to survive depends on how we relate to each other and the planet. As Aurora Levins Morales says, “[i]n order to create ecologically viable societies and avoid our own extinction, we will have to build social movements that include all humans in our vision of environmentalism and our entire ecosystem in our vision of social justice” (2019, p. 8).

9. Many institutions and spaces, like academia, require a convincing performance of psychiatric normalcy
   In this course, I learned many ways in which ableist discourses are institutionally and socially reified, but I was particularly struck by María Elena Cepeda’s idea of “performance of psychiatric normalcy” (2021, p. 304). In many personal and professional settings, individuals are often compelled to present themselves as “normal,” conforming to specific societal standards. These pressures are especially burdensome for mentally disabled people, who face the profound and daunting effects of these expectations.

10. Remember to listen to your body-mind—productivity should not be prioritized over your well-being 
    This last item is a learning, but also a reminder. I finally would like to say that this course has helped me relate to myself—my body-mind—in other ways that some months ago were far from being a reality. It has prompted me to acquire a more self-reflexive approach to learning and my academic performance. I am a self-demanding person, something that has helped me to get to certain spaces and opportunities that I deeply cherish. At the same time, it has been the underlying cause of many sources of unease (this is something that I leave for my therapist…). Thinking about, thinking with the framework of “theory in the flesh” has opened many windows: by listening to my body-mind, I was able to prioritize productivity less, to think about my experiences as a source of knowledge, to go along the pace that my body dictated, not what academic and capitalist notions of productivity dictated, to pursue activities without taking into consideration if I am good at them, to submit or present work even if it is not completely polished and finished. It is something that I am working on and perhaps it is a life-long struggle (and, knowing myself, too, I would not like to get away with everything altogether), but this course has definitely contributed to this. Thank you, Dra. Lizarazo, for having the approach you have to teaching and learning!

Finally, I would like to mention that this semester has been very busy for various reasons and I haven’t had the time to work on the “aesthetic” part of my Scalar, something I wanted to do. Moreover, while I will also try to complete the reflection/essay related to the final project before the end of the semester, I am not sure if I will be able to do so, as I am a bit behind grading my student’s work. I will try to do so, though, as I would like to explain how the zine I created relates to the work.

Overall, I believe that this class has been a turning point in many regards: in challenging and binging nuance to many ideas I had related to disability, in helping me think about one of my current projects a.k.a. my thesis (I would not have arrived to certain understandings if I had not taken this class), in learning more about myself and my learning process, in allowing me the space to ensayar other versions of me and holding ground for vulnerability. 

Side note

At some point while writing this listicle, I went back to review the listicle I created for our previous class, Femismos de Abya Yala, and noticed that the first item mentions learning about the concept of cuerpo-territorio. Another one was about the concept of “hopeful pessimism”. Little did I know back then that they would be two backbones of my thesis... Sweet, sweet learning that now reminds me of how many things I’ve learned this semester will continue to resonate in future projects and my daily life.



References:

Cepeda, M. E. (2021). Thrice Unseen, Forever on Borrowed Time: Latina Feminist Reflections on Mental Disability and the Neoliberal Academy. South Atlantic Quarterly, 120(2), pp. 301–320. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-8916046

Coráñez Bolton, S. (2023). Crip Colony: Mestizaje, US Imperialism, and the Queer Politics of Disability in the Philippines. Duke University Press.

Levins Morales, A. (2019). Medicine Stories: Essays for Radicals. Duke University Press.

Piepzna-Samarasinha, L. L. (n.d.). Disability Justice: An Audit Tool. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ed94da22956b942e1d51e12/t/625877951e18163c703bd0f4/1649964964772/DJ+Audit+Tool.pdf

Sins Invalid. (2019). Skin, Tooth, and Bone – The Basis of Movement is Our People: A Disability Justice Primer (2nd ed.). Sins Invalid.

Yarza de los Ríos, A. & Romualdo Pérez, Z. (2021). “Discapacidad” desde y en los pueblos indígenas en Abya Yala/Afro/Latino/América: aproximaciones desde Colombia (mundo Êbêra Eyábida) y México (mundo Ayüük Jääy). In P. Mara Danel, B. Pérez Ramírez & A. Yarza de los Ríos (Eds.), ¿Quién es el sujeto de la discapacidad?: exploraciones, configuraciones y potencialidades (pp. 155-182). CLACSO.