Welcome to Navara FM. I'm Navara's Head of Articles Charlotte England. This month we've

been looking at the ways in which disabled people are marginalised by the extractive

social structures that entrap us all, as part of a focus series called Disability It's Political.

From helping us imagine an anti-capitalist future to exposing our independence in the present,

the series is a primer on a politics that left usually ignores.

We've recorded audio versions of every article in the series and selected eight of them to

feature in this unusual Navara FM, which spans topics like mental health, our toxic work

culture, the philosopher Peter Singer, sex worker rights, sign language and why autism

is not a disease. Head to Navaramedia.com to read every article in the series and check

out two special episodes of downstream, on portrayals of disability and pop culture and

on anti-capitalist analyses of disability, hosted by Ash Sarka and Michael Walker.

Disability politics are anti-capitalist politics by Ellen Clifford.

A common complaint down generations of disabled campaigners is the perceived failure of

the wider left to engage seriously with disability politics. This may seem unfair to those

non-disabled allies who have actively fought Tory cuts or proactively taken steps to improve

access and inclusion. There are even groundbreaking examples of non-disabled campaigners developing

political education around disability. But it remains the case that disabled people make

up 21% of the UK population, under the world's largest minority, yet only relatively few

people, almost exclusively disabled activists and academics, have taken a historical materialist

analysis to the question of disabled people's oppression. It is a constant source of frustration

that those who hold progressive ideas in all other areas still tend to understand disability

in line with the negative attitudes and prejudices common throughout wider society.

...