Disability in Africa
Inclusion, Care, and the Ethics of Humanity
Contributions by Professor Maria Berghs, Anna Lee Carothers, Fikru Gebrekidan, Mary Nyangweso, Kathryn Geurts, Professor Ernest Cole, Dr Kolawole Olaiya, Saloua Ben Zahra, Angi Stone-MacDonald, Ozden H. Pinar-Irmak, Dr Ntombekhaya Tshabalala, Elizabeth Ladner Babi Agbettor, Theresa Lorenzo, Professor Frances Emily Owusu-Ansah, Denise M. Nepveux, Dr Emmanuel Sackey, Desire Chiwandire, Professor Serges Alain Djoyou Kamga Edited by Nic Hamel, Professor Toyin Falola
Publication date:
15 June 2021Length of book:
452 pagesPublisher
University of Rochester PressISBN-13: 9781787446717
Exploring issues of disability culture, activism, and policy across the African continent, this volume argues for the recognition of African disability studies as an important and emerging interdisciplinary field.
While the disability rights movement of recent decades has a rich and well-documented history, it is a history mostly focused on the Global North. Disability in Africa presents an interdisciplinary approach to cultural, health, and policy challenges that disability issues have raised throughout the African continent. The volume draws on the achievements of disability studies while acknowledging the demands and challenges of particular African contexts. The authors bring diverse methodological approaches and expertise to bear on these issues, ranging from anthropology and bioethics to special education and community rehabilitation. Essays consider indigenously African definitions of disability as well as exploring disability at the intersection of poverty, geography, and globalized biopolitics. Contributors analyze the difficulties of implementing disability policy across the continent while also being mindful of successful approaches taken at local, national, and international levels. Disability in Africa thus charts new avenues for disability studies research in and about Africa.
While the disability rights movement of recent decades has a rich and well-documented history, it is a history mostly focused on the Global North. Disability in Africa presents an interdisciplinary approach to cultural, health, and policy challenges that disability issues have raised throughout the African continent. The volume draws on the achievements of disability studies while acknowledging the demands and challenges of particular African contexts. The authors bring diverse methodological approaches and expertise to bear on these issues, ranging from anthropology and bioethics to special education and community rehabilitation. Essays consider indigenously African definitions of disability as well as exploring disability at the intersection of poverty, geography, and globalized biopolitics. Contributors analyze the difficulties of implementing disability policy across the continent while also being mindful of successful approaches taken at local, national, and international levels. Disability in Africa thus charts new avenues for disability studies research in and about Africa.
I encourage the readers to take in multiple texts within this book. Listen to the multiplicities of voices and perspectives; prepare yourself to challenge mainstream notions of "the handicapped" as well as popular notions in the West about inclusion and disability.
You'll learn about African cultural contexts and find perspectives here that you can use to support disabled people wherever you live.
You'll learn about African cultural contexts and find perspectives here that you can use to support disabled people wherever you live.