Intersectionality is a term coined by professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. This term describes how race, class, gender, and other individual characteristics “intersect” with one another and overlap (Coaston). In other words, identities are complex and multiple. The term “intersecting identities’ was used by organizers in the 2017 Women’s March to describe how people are “impacted by a multitude of social justice and human rights issues” (Coaston). Intersectionality is essential to inclusive sustainable development because it can provide an understanding of the exclusion that we currently see in development initiatives. For example, development initiatives that address violence against women of color can be co-opted by identity politics, which often conflate and ignore intra group differences (Crenshaw 1). Violence against women is shaped by other dimensions of identity aside from gender, such as race and class (Crenshaw 1). This is just one example of many that elucidate how oftentimes, identity politics play a larger role in policy-making and development programs than intersectionality. We must change the perception and the narrative from one of identity politics to one of intersectionality.
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The World Urban Forum
The World Urban Forum (WUF) is convened by the UN-Habitat in the United Nations Settlements Programme (“Kuala Lumpur to Host”). The WUF was established in 2001 and was created to address the timely issue of rapid urbanization and its effects on cities, communities, climate change, economies, and policies (“About WUF”). Many different descriptions of the WUF characterize the Forum as inclusive and as having high-level participation (“About WUF”).
Continue readingInclusive Smart Cities
Cities can be made inclusive and accessible once old models of disability that ignore spatiality are replaced by new models of disability that address spatiality. Pineda’s article, Enabling Justice: Spatializing Disability in the Built Environment,” reaffirms the importance of how physical space and the environment can enable or disable individuals (111). Further, Pineda explains how “contemporary legal definitions of disability are not overtly spatial” (112) when spatiality is an essential part of how persons with disabilities navigate their environment. Challenging the definition of disability to include spatiality, a central component of the environment that brings about discrimination and injustice for persons with disabilities, would “radically and fundamentally alter our understanding of equal rights” (Pineda 112). Pineda offers a new socio-spatial model of disability that aims to challenge dominant models of disability, such as the charity, medical, and personal tragedy models, that assign blame to individuals and ignore the importance of the environment in hindering persons with disabilities. The socio-spatial model of disability recognizes how “physical barriers are unjust and oppressive” (Pineda 117), which reveals that under this new model of disability, personal freedom is inherently valued. In sum, cities can be made inclusive and accessible once the distribution of space is realized. Pineda argues that this recognition “is an important aspect of realizing justice for disabled persons” (122).
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Inclusive Sustainable Development 