Halin ai: Intersectional Experiences of Disability, Climate Change, and Disasters in Indonesia

Abstract

Halin ai centres the lived experiences of climate change and disasters of people living with disabilities in two urban sites in Indonesia—Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan and Mataram in West Nusa Tenggara. We call for an intersectional and decolonial approach to better understand how disabilities intersect with social and structural injustices in urban settings to shape diverse responses to climate change and disasters. We highlight the economic, socio‐cultural, and embodied challenges that increase vulnerability to—and ability to recover from—disasters including urban flooding and earthquakes. We draw on ethnographic and visual data from our research, including a comic illustrated by Ariel and Zaldi and sketches by Rizaldi, to centre diverse lived experiences of structural vulnerabilities and socio‐cultural marginalisation, particularly concerning education and livelihoods. Foregrounding life stories in this way serves to challenge the absence of meaningful engagement of people with disabilities in disaster risk reduction and climate change actions and decision‐making. Our article highlights disability as a site of both discrimination and critical embodied knowledge, simultaneously a product of structural, socio‐cultural, political, and environmental injustice while also a source of innovation, resilience, and agency.