In the final session of our series “Disability Activism Under Pressure: Resistance and Resilience in Authoritarian Contexts“, we turned inwards. After weeks of examining repression, surveillance, and the machinery of control, we closed by asking how we hold one another when everything else collapses. Care, trust, and community are often invoked as buzzwords, but in…

By Akriti Mehta Our webinar series on disability activism under authoritarianism has now come to a close. Hearing from people from such different contexts about the challenges they are facing has been difficult. It is clear that the forces of oppression and injustice are building momentum—authoritarianism is gaining ground from Argentina to UK to El…

Mad Thinking hosted the fifth session of its 6-part webinar series, “Disability Activism Under Pressure: Resistance and Resilience in Authoritarian Contexts” on October 15. Titled “Solidarity in the Face of Authoritarianism: What Cross-Movement Activism Demands”, the conversation explored the meaning and practice of solidarity across movements. The session was moderated by Negin Shiraghaei (Azadi Network).…

On October 1, 2025, Mad Thinking hosted the fourth session of its webinar series, “Disability Activism Under Pressure: Resistance and Resilience in Authoritarian Contexts.” Titled “Re-thinking How We Come Together: Building Diverse Structures of Organising,” the conversation explored how movements can resist fragmentation and rethink the very ways we organise, lead, and sustain collective power.…

By Alberto Vásquez Encalada Midway through our Mad Thinking webinar series, ‘Disability Activism Under Pressure,’ one idea keeps coming to mind: authoritarianism creates the temptation to stay on the margins. To lie low. To let others lead the fight you silently support. It can feel safer. And it’s often safer in the short term—especially when we know elites…

We held the third session of our webinar series on “Disability Activism Under Pressure: Resistance and Resilience in Authoritarian Contexts” on September 18. This session, titled Funding Futures: Re-Thinking Current Models and Finding Alternatives, brought together Deya Bhattacharya (AWID), Marija Jakovljević (Dalan Fund), and Fredrick Ouko (ADD International). The conversation, moderated by Lizzie Kiama (This…

On September 3, we held the second session of our webinar series on “Disability Activism Under Pressure: Resistance and Resilience in Authoritarian Contexts“. Following on from our first conversation (you can find our reflections on our website), this instalment of La Yapa reflects on the session on Operating in an Age of Surveillance: Building Security…

By Alberto Vásquez Encalada I’m glad to share that my new piece for the American Bar Association’s Human Rights Magazine is out: “Involuntary Mental Health Treatment: A Human Rights Crisis in Authoritarian Times.” In it, I argue that the renewed push for coercive mental health measures, often targeting people who are unhoused or use drugs,…

On August 20, we held the opening session of our series, “Disability Activism Under Pressure: Resistance and Resilience in Authoritarian Contexts.” The conversation, The Authoritarian Blueprint in Action, brought together Celeste Fernández (ACIJ, Argentina), Noah Bullock (Cristosal, El Salvador), and Shezana Hafiz (CAGE International, UK) to share experiences of how states target activism and what…

By Akriti Mehta It feels like authoritarianism is in the very air we breathe. In recent months, almost every webinar, conference, blog, newsletter, or discussion landing in my inbox—whether from academic groups, activist networks big and small, or disability focussed mailing lists—has circled back to the urgent question: how do we resist authoritarianism?  Across the…