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Indigenous peoples are part of those populations who are underserved by Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology. They include minority world populations like Aboriginal Australians/Canadians and majority world peoples in Asia, Africa and the Americas. How do Western-oriented rehabilitation/disability practitioners practice with Others? In this article, we reflect on our own experiences and use ideological critique to reveal the fault lines in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology practices. Along with other examples, we analyse South African data, viz.: canonical articles as illuminators and our works (c1990-). We reveal predominant practices/ideologies that contribute to the production of disability. We focus on three interconnected issues (i) the construction of rehabilitation/disability practitioners as (il)legitimate providers for indigenous peoples; (ii) the engagement of epistemic violence across disability practice, educational and policy domains; and (iii) the authoritative (re)inscription of indigenous persons as disabled by transnational practitioners who, like their corporate counterparts, market practices. Professional marketeering is infused with bigotry, masked as benevolence and resourced/justified by global, neo-liberal policies (e.g., international conventions) and funding. We conclude that disability practices and indigeneity in the post-colonial moment capitalises on established settler-native relationships to continue dominance over Others’ lives. Finally, we present a way forward, namely the relationship of Labouring Affinities which promotes deimperialisation and decolonisation practices to enable professional transformation.
Disability and the Global South, 2018, Vol.5, No. 2
