This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Rebecca Yeo [X/Twitter]. Rebecca is an activist and academic specialising in issues of disability and migrant justice and the author of Disabling Migration Controls: Shared Learning, Solidarity, and Collective Resistance (Routledge 2024). The book is Open Access and you can do yourselves a favour and grab a copy at the link above.
When people are prevented from meeting their needs, the impact is disabling, whether in the immigration system or in the wider population. Drawing on many years of research and activism, this book argues that insights from the disabled people’s movement, particularly the original Social Model of Disability, can be usefully extended to focus resistance on the disabling restrictions imposed on people subject to asylum and immigration controls.
While acknowledging the pain and discomfort of many impairments and of forced displacement, the book focuses on injustices that can be changed. It does not catalogue the hostility of the ‘hostile environment’. Nor does it promote inclusive asylum restrictions. An unjust system is not transformed by including disabled people. Policies designed to deprive people of essential needs and to stoke hatred among the wider population are core elements of the rise of fascism. In this context, bringing together movements for disability and migrant justice could help build urgently needed solidarity and resistance with which to develop a society based on equity and common humanity.
Quotations and images are used to convey the messages and priorities of disabled people seeking asylum, ensuring that the book is both engaging and grounded in the insights of lived experience. This book will interest people seeking to improve social justice, including scholars of disability, migration, sociology and politics.
Rebecca is also involved in the Disability Murals project. We spoke to Rebecca about the project, her book, the social model of disability (and its radical implications), the disabling effects of and damage wrought by hostile environments, immigration controls and austerity, and sources of collective resistance. For more infos, please see the The Disability and Migration Network : ‘The lives of Disabled people and people without migration status are impoverished and restricted by deliberate policies, routine practices and the ways that society is organised. This is not inevitable’ : solidarity > borders.
See/hear also : Raising Our Voices (‘a self advocacy radio show run by people with disability on 3CR’) /// There’s a floating ‘recipe for disaster’ off England’s coast — it has links to Australia, Riley Stuart, ABC, August 10, 2023 /// Crossborder Operational Matters.
4.30pm, Thursday, October 31, 2024 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.
