Skip to main content
CSWE Annual Conference 2025 Main banner

Interactive Workshop

Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice

Creating the Other: The Construction of “Disability” as an Instrument of Colonization

This session will interrogate societal constructions of “disability,” historically and presently, that support the aims of colonization. Framing bodies/minds as “other” renders them less than human, facilitating surveillance, erasure, and violence. Presenters will discuss these processes in their respective practice areas, yielding implications for MSW education and counternarratives of decolonization.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this session, attendees should be able to:
  1. Identify ways in which societal constructions of “disability” have been deployed, historically and presently, to rationalize and justify the surveillance, erasure, and violence inherent in colonization.
  2. Explain how “othering” via narratives of disability and impairment in three areas of social work practice renders affected individuals less than fully human, supporting processes of colonization.
  3. Explore implications for social work education and its potential to serve as one context for the creation of decolonizing counternarratives.