Considerations of an African Childhood Disability Studies

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore how childhood disability studies can be theorized within ‘African’ ways of being and thinking, drawing on a socio-cultural and postcolonial paradigm. We recognize the dominance of theories imported from the global North, and note that the global South indigenous knowledge systems (particularly African communities) have been undermined. We begin our discussion by examining the changing structure of families in Africa and the impact that this has on disabled children. We then move towards conceptualizing disability as a social construct, which is not readily accounted for by the uncritical importation of models and theories into the African context. We recognize the impact of poverty on disabled children in particular and place this in the context of African notions of a collective well-being as expressed in ubuntu. We are mindful of the dangers of overgeneralizing for the entire continent and draw primarily, but not exclusively, on specific examples from South Africa and Zimbabwe, in our quest to explore the culturally complex and multi-dimensional daily African experiences of disabled children. We reflect on the literature and our experiences, and make some considerations for an ‘African’ childhood disability studies, mainly on the basis of issues resonating from these two countries.