From Disability Justice - a working draft by Patty Berne in 2015:
A ninth principle is Collective Access, that as brown and queer crips we bring flexibility and we creative nuance to engage with each other, that we value exploring and creating new ways of doing things that go beyond able-bodied/minded normativity. Access needs do not need to be held in shame -- we all have various capacities which function differently in various environments. Access needs can be articulated within a community and met privately or through a collective, depending upon an individual’s needs, desires, and the capacity of the group. We can share responsibility for our access needs without shame, we can ask our needs be met without compromising our integrity, we can balance autonomy while being in community, we can be unafraid of our vulnerabilities knowing our strengths are respected.
When we practice transformative justice, we look for alternative methods to punitive (punishment-based) processes.
Fully practicing a "transformative justice process" necessitates many people taking different roles in the process based on their needs, boundaries and strengths. Below is an example of access needs and roles in a virtual classroom setting where we consider how we can achieve collective access through articulating our needs.
An Example of Collective Access in a Virtual Classroom Setting
In a transformative justice process, that may look like surveying your community. Who has experience with what? What tools are most useful?
Adapted from the Creative Interventions Toolkit, below is an example of some common community roles in a process. Start surveying your community members to find out what needs they'd like to provide:
In our own experiences of climate organizing, we have been a part of access check-ins where it feels difficult to actually articulate access needs due to personal traumas, positionality, or dynamics created (e.g. organizers of the meeting all say their access needs are met, so it then feels difficult to present an access need).
Tip: Specificity with discussing your capacity to participate (see here →)
Start a discussion with your collective regarding the difficulties with sharing access needs:
Sources Referenced