Decolonial Perspectives

This article examines the intersections of ableism, mental health, and environmental change through a critical ecological framework grounded in intersectionality and decolonial thought. Dominant responses to ecological crisis within Western paradigms tend to frame climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution as technical or managerial problems, marginalizing the embodied, psychological, and relational dimensions of ecological harm. Disabled people, neurodivergent individuals, and those experiencing mental distress are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation, yet their experiences and knowledges remain peripheral within environmental theory and policy. Drawing on disability studies, political ecology, and Indigenous and non-Western ecological scholarship, this article argues that ableism functions as a structuring logic within Western ecological paradigms, shaping assumptions about resilience, productivity, adaptation, and value. Through a critical synthesis of interdisciplinary literature and a set of analytical case interventions, this article advances critical ecology as an approach that centers interdependence, vulnerability, and care as ecological principles rather than deficits. It contributes to decolonial ecological debates by demonstrating how disability and mental distress expose the limitations of Western ontologies of control and autonomy and by articulating alternative ecological imaginaries grounded in relational responsibility, collective survival, and epistemic plurality.

Disaster risk management in Indonesia mainly relies on technocratic knowledge and seemingly neutral or universal data systems. This article explores disaster risk governance near Mount Merapi, Central Java, from a decolonial feminist perspective, emphasizing the links between volcanic risk, women with disabilities, and digital technologies. Digital inclusion is seen not just as a technical fix but as a contested space of knowledge, power, and representation in disaster risk reduction. Using a qualitative method and a critical review of academic work, policies, and disaster data practices, the study finds ongoing colonial patterns affecting women with disabilities, including data exclusion, restricted access to digital infrastructure, platforms that are not disability-friendly, and policies that lack proper operational and contextual adaptation. The experiences and local practices of women with disabilities are often marginalized by official data systems that overlook the intersection of body, gender, and disability. Yet, the study also highlights grassroots initiatives led by survivors that promote digital inclusion and inclusive data as acts of resistance and efforts to decolonize disaster risk reduction. It argues that effective disaster management around Merapi needs a shift from technocratic control to approaches that see women with disabilities as knowers rather than passive protectees. A decolonial feminist view fosters more equitable, contextual, and inclusive disaster risk strategies for vulnerable groups.

This article explores the tension between decolonial literary aesthetics and the rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in English literature education. While postcolonial writers such as Chinua Achebe, Arundhati Roy, Laksmi Pamuntjak, and Intan Paramaditha have successfully reclaimed English to voice non-Western ontologies, the emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools poses a new threat of "Digital Epistemicide." Using Walter Mignolo’s decoloniality framework, this study analyzes how AI algorithms function as modern "linguistic police," standardizing local metaphors and circular syntaxes into linear Western norms. The results indicate that AI interventions often erase a text's "cultural soul" in the name of grammatical efficiency. The implications for English Language Teaching (ELT) are profound; the reliance on AI-driven classroom feedback risks reinforcing Linguistic Imperialism 2.0. This research argues for a transformative decolonial pedagogy in ELT that shifts the focus from mere grammatical correctness to algorithmic critical literacy. By encouraging students to negotiate AI suggestions critically, educators can empower them to make meaningful errors as a vital act of resistance.