11/05/2026
Here in Aotearoa, colonisation changed more than land, language, and systems. It reshaped how human worth was understood. Value became tied to productivity, independence, and fitting within systems that made little room for difference.
And in that shift, disability came to be understood through lack. Through what was absent, rather than what was present.
But te ao Māori has long held a different truth.
A person’s difference did not diminish their mana, their whakapapa, or their place in the collective. They remained whole.
In some traditions, that difference carried honour. A connection to wairua and to parts of the world not witnessed by all.
And that understanding reaches beyond Aotearoa.
Across many Indigenous cultures, disability has long been part of the human story. Not outside community, but woven through it.
What many of us are working towards now, dignity, belonging, and recognising disabled people as whole, is often spoken about as progress.
But maybe it is also remembrance.
A return to something people have always known.
