Sovereign Desires: Disability, Land, and Indigenous Bodies as Sites for Justice

Abstract: This article examines disability, land, and Indigenous embodiment as interrelated sites of sovereignty that resist colonial logics of deficit, ableism, and dispossession. Drawing on critical Indigenous studies and disability studies, it argues that Indigenous understandings of disability differ fundamentally from settler frameworks, positioning disability not as a deviation or pathology but as a relational mode of being grounded in land, kinship, and collective care. The article traces how colonial legal, medical, and social systems have produced Indigenous disability as a mechanism of governance, regulating bodies in ways that parallel land dispossession and deny Indigenous self-determination. In contrast, Indigenous disability sovereignty is theorized as an embodied and relational practice that refuses settler ideals of normalcy, productivity, and independence. Bringing disability justice into conversation with Indigenous resurgence, the article reframes sovereignty as a lived practice enacted through care,