Attending a. meeting on Indigenous research!

Interestingly, this is very accessible to me right now because of the app used and the oral nature of these presentations, but it's very auditory? With some visuals. W/no hearing, I see no sign language nor written transcripts.

Both are possible during online meetings - I saw it done in a meeting such as this one.

I'm just reflecting on the accessibility of those meetings as they happen.

It just occurred to me that accessibility and colonialism is a discussion to be had too.

So far the only article I saw on this is

Decolonial Theory and Disability Studies: On the Modernity/Coloniality of Ability, by Thomas P. Dirth, Glenn A. Adams.

I like this meeting.

[If you wanna be technical, I made room for this meeting, but didn't show up for digital lectures at NTNU, oops]

There is an overused blind joke to be made whenever someone asks "can everyone see me?" in any meeting, no matter the format.

There is so much interesting research going on, though??? whew. I'm blown away!

whew I'm really struggling since there are no captions.

There was a discussion on northern Sámi perspectives in research - about the concern of Northern Sami situated atop a "hierarchy" at the expense of the other Sami languages, if I understood the discussion properly. I missed all of it, except the textual question in the chat.

In disability activism, we also see this hierarchy existing in terms of medical diagnoses.

I.e., cancer gets research funding. Blind people's org has a lot of political influence. ME/CFS and fibrosis? GET OUTTA HERE, no funding for you.

The hierarchies are created bc scarcity.

Scarcity of funding and systems.

In this case, colonialism?

Hm.

But I'm so unsettled I missed the question bc I've been curious about it bc I hear it sometimes in informal settings.

I never pitch in bc it's not my place. But I'm curious what they said.

Meeting over.

I'll keep thinking about the "hierarchy" thing - the question strikes me as EERILY similar to disability activism's struggle for equality for all, where we KNOW the medical community privileges certain diagnoses / research bc it gives 'em more status.

Similarly, if there is worry among some Sami scholars that Northern Sami has a dominant and somewhat privileged position, what does that question reveal, on a deeper level?

What anxieties lie at the heart of this question?

Ofc, all of the Sami languages are in a difficult position.

That is the truth.

BUT.

The question itself reveals anxiety that needs acknowledging, and soothed, somehow.

Cuz if it weighs that heavily on some people's minds, there is a deeper issue somewhere, is my thinking.

Scarcity is constructed, btw.

/end thread.