About us

Today, disability is often understood through legal, medical, social, and human rights frameworks. These frameworks have played an important role in advancing accessibility, protecting rights, reducing discrimination, and creating opportunities for inclusion. They influence many aspects of everyday life, including access to education, employment supports, housing programs, disability benefits, healthcare services, accessibility legislation, and human rights protections.

However, these systems also rely on specific definitions and assumptions about disability. In many cases, individuals must identify themselves as having a disability, receive a diagnosis, or meet eligibility criteria in order to access programs, services, or supports. These frameworks shape how disability is discussed and understood across Canada, including within Inuit communities.

Historically, Inuit societies were built around relationships, interdependence, collective responsibility, and contribution to community life. Individuals were valued for the knowledge, skills, strengths, and roles they brought to their families and communities. While people undoubtedly experienced illness, injury, impairment, differences in functioning, and changing abilities, these experiences were often understood within the broader context of family, relationships, and community responsibilities rather than through formal diagnostic labels.

Inuit communities developed ways of supporting one another based on cooperation, adaptability, and shared responsibility. Community members contributed in different ways depending on their strengths, circumstances, and abilities. This does not mean disability did not exist. Rather, it suggests that the ways disability was understood, discussed, and responded to may not always correspond directly to contemporary Western frameworks. Understanding these distinctions is important because they continue to influence how disability is perceived and experienced today.

Many Inuit today navigate multiple ways of understanding disability at the same time.

For instance, Western definitions of disability are often necessary to access supports, services, accommodations, benefits, and legal protections. These systems can provide important resources and opportunities that improve quality of life. However, these definitions may not always reflect how individuals, families, or communities understand their own experiences. This can create tension. People may need to adopt terminology or labels required by programs and policies, even when those terms do not fully capture their identities, experiences, or cultural understandings. The Forum recognizes that these realities are complex and that there is no single Inuit perspective on disability. Experiences differ across regions, generations, communities, families, and individuals.

Any discussion of disability in Inuit communities must also acknowledge the ongoing impacts of colonization. Residential schools, forced relocations, family separations, systemic discrimination, housing shortages, food insecurity, barriers to healthcare, and other colonial policies have had lasting effects on Inuit communities and wellbeing.

These experiences continue to shape physical, emotional, mental, social, and community health across Inuit Nunangat and urban Inuit communities. Contemporary conversations about disability, mental health, accessibility, caregiving, and inclusion cannot be separated from these broader social, historical, and political realities. Understanding disability in Inuit contexts therefore requires attention not only to individual experiences, but also to the systems and conditions that shape those experiences.