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This article builds upon existing critiques of Canada’s immigration system by focusing on the medical inadmissibility of young people labelled with intellectual disabilities. In considering how the Canadian state regulates applications for permanent residency, it explores discourses and practices of citizenship which invoke mutually-constituting identity markers such as disability and race. A close reading of case studies involving family applicants, demonstrates how immigration policies and legal systems frame the needs of young people labelled with intellectual or ‘profound’ disabilities as a burden to Canadian society. Individuals who were initially denied admission to Canada due to their diagnostic label, experience disability-related discrimination in different ways depending on the role of their perceived racial, gender, and class identities, among others. The individuals considered in this study navigate intersectional identities and ableist legal systems in their efforts to resist discrimination and win a review of their residency applications. This analysis will show that applicants are forced to work through the logic of medical assessment processes to favourably position their children within impairment hierarchies which rank intellectual disability as ‘too disabled’ to be admissible.

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2016, Vol. 3 No. 2

La idea de deconstrucción analítica del concepto de contingencia da espacio a un ‘juego’ del pensamiento con relación a lo azaroso como naturalizado, cuando de hecho, al plantearlo desde la normalización, ya trae su correlato desde la ideología de la normalidad. Se invita a reconocer la temática en su tensión entre lo que se dice y lo que se hace, a partir del análisis reflexivo de algunas categorías analíticas y su referenciación con sensaciones y percepciones de sujetos concretos que hacen a personas en situación de discapacidad de la población económicamente activa. Bajo el rótulo de normalidad, en estas sociedades contemporáneas se van mezclando naturalizaciones que no son más que construcciones sociales que remiten a la producción y reproducción de la Ideología hegemónica. Todo está construido para hacer creer que lo contingente es tal, la normalidad es tal, en un marco donde los procesos de objetivación individuales y colectivos tienden a resquebrajarse o desaparecer.

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2016, Vol. 3 No. 2

This study of people of refugee backgrounds explored how disability is culturally constructed in the family context, including barriers and enablers to social inclusion and service uptake in Brisbane, Australia. Key themes included the lived experiences of people with disability in their country of origin; experiences of the functioning of government and non-government services; family; barriers in communication and language; transport as a barrier to access; the community of people from their country within Australia; and service gaps and needs. Participants had experienced stigma in their country of origin, and for some this continued within their community of origin. Language and lack of engagement by government and non-government services contributed to service gaps and access barriers. Family remained important. People from refugee backgrounds living in Australia experience significant and compounding barriers to service access, and have unmet needs. They have a limited voice in the current policy context, and lack knowledge and support to facilitate interactions with the current system. Further research would assist in development of a more detailed understanding of these issues.

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2016, Vol. 3 No. 1

This paper critiques recent initiatives for deploying the Recovery Model in the Indian sub-continent. It traces the history and growth of the model, and questions its applicability for mental health care in the Indian sub-continent. The authors argue that mental health professionals in this region are at the crossroads of a familiar past: either to uncritically import and apply a Euro-American 'recovery' model or reconfigure its fundamental premise such that it is embraced by the majority Indian population. The paper proposes a fundamental re-thinking of existing culturally incongruent 'Recovery Models' before application in India’s public mental health and clinic settings. More crucially, policy makers, clinicians and researchers need to reconsider the local validity of what constitutes 'recovery' for the very people who place their trust in State mental health services. This critical reappraisal, together with essential culturally-sensitive research, is germane to prevent yet again the deployment of culture-blind programmes and practices. Addressing these uncontested issues has profound implications for public mental health in the Global South.

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2016, Vol. 3 No. 1

This paper offers an analysis of the documentary film, Una Vida Sin Palabras [A life without words] (2011). The film follows a short period in the lives of a campesino family living in a rural area of Nicaragua as a teacher of Nicaraguan sign language, working for a local NGO, endeavours to teach three deaf siblings how to sign. Bringing together the critical practices of Disability and Subaltern studies in the specific context of contemporary Nicaragua, the paper argues: (1) that the film ultimately re-inscribes and reinforces the subalternity of the disabled subjects it sets out to portray; and (2) that the hierarchy it produces between its object – the deaf family – and its implied educated, metropolitan audience replays some influential (but, we would argue, politically limited) critiques of the failure of the first Sandinista Government (1979-1990) and other broad based radical political movements to represent the national popular. In so doing, the paper also makes a case for the political and intellectual importance of bringing a Critical Disability Studies perspective to the field of Subaltern Studies, and argues that an engagement with the problems that are presented by this film at the level of both form and content raise some important questions for both fields of enquiry.

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2016, Vol. 3 No. 1

Articles include:

• Towards a ‘mind map’ for evaluative thinking in Community Based Rehabilitation: reflections and learning
• Participation of persons with disabilities in political activities in Cameroon
• The medical inadmissibility of intellectual disability: A Postcolonial reading of Canadian immigration systems
• Research principles and research experiences: critical reflection on conducting a PhD dissertation on global health and disability
• Contingencias normalizadoras en la relación Discapacidad–Trabajo en Francia y Uruguay

The vast majority of the world’s displaced people are hosted in the global South, in the poorest countries in the world. This is also a space with the highest numbers of disabled people, many of who live in extreme and chronic poverty. This poverty, alongside deprivation, wars, conflict, and environmental disasters is what drives people to flee, in search of security. This includes disabled people. In spite of this, this population (disabled forced migrants) continues to be cast in a shadow, of epistemological, ontological and practical invisibility. It is hardly theorised in forced migration studies and rarely contemplated in humanitarian intervention. The lives of disabled forced migrants are cast aside in a Eurocentric disability studies that remains global North-centric and focused, while Southern contexts and histories and the geopolitics that envelope them, are forgotten or never known. Migration theory grows without the disabled person, disability studies without the migrant, and practice without the disabled migrant. In this paper, we explore the disability/forced migration nexus with a view to understanding some of the critical intersectionalities that emerge, and their implications for theory and practice. We trace elements of the forced migration trajectory, from exodus, to crossing international borders, to life in protracted refugee camps, the use of networks and smugglers, to those related to national and human security. We argue that forced migration studies, as well as humanitarian practice continue to be premised on and adopting an ableist approach focused on heteronormative productive bodies, while disability studies, with a corpus of work premised on an assumption of citizenship, has failed to critically engage with issues of sovereignty, borders and bodies that lie beyond the protection of the Nation State. In this paper, we also question and contest dominant and hegemonic frames that are historically contextualized, alongside discourses and structures that not only produce forced migration, but also serve to perpetuate the global divide and inequalities. We conclude by calling for a critical interrogation of theoretical perspectives in both forced migration and disability studies, in policy and humanitarian action, and to work towards a praxis geared towards social justice for disabled forced migrants.

Disability and the Global South (DGS), 2015, Vol. 2 No. 1

Persons with disabilities remain one of the most vulnerable and socially excluded groups in any displaced community. Barriers to accessing humanitarian assistance programs increase their protection risks, including risk of violence, abuse and exploitation. Women’s Refugee Commission has been supporting the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and implementing partners to translate guidance on disability inclusion into practice at field levels through the provision of technical support to eight country operations. In the course of the project, WRC has consulted with over 600 persons with disabilities and care-givers and over 130 humanitarian actors in displacement contexts. Key protection concerns identified include a lack of participation in community decision making; stigma and discrimination of children and young persons with disabilities by their non-disabled peers; violence against persons with disabilities, including gender-based violence; lack of access to disabilityspecific health care; and unmet basic needs among families of persons with multiple impairments. Suggested strategies to further advance disability inclusion in humanitarian programming include: strengthening identification of protection risks and case management services for persons with disabilities; facilitating contextspecific action planning around key guidelines; and engaging the disability movement in advocacy on refugee issues.

Disability and the Global South (DGS), 2015, Vol. 2 No. 1

Australia has long placed restrictions on the immigration of people with disabilities. While recent civil society mobilisation has forced some shift in policy, it is far from clear whether this will result in people with disabilities being accepted as immigrants. The issue is complicated further for people defined as ‘refugees’ and ‘asylum seekers’ who have encountered the migration restrictions on disability. As a result of this policy landscape, there is limited rigorous research that seeks to understand the social inclusion and participation of disabled refugees and asylum seekers within the resettlement process. An extensive review reveals that refugees and asylum seekers with disabilities remain largely absent from both resettlement literature and disability research. This paper summarises the limited available research in the area around the following themes: processes of offshore migration and the way that disability is assessed under Australia’s refugee legislation; the uncertainty of the prevalence of disability within refugee and asylum seeker communities; the provision of resettlement services, both mainstream and disability-specific, through the transitional period and beyond; and the invisibility of asylum seekers with disabilities in Australia’s immigration detention centres, community-based arrangements and offshore processing centres. To conclude, the paper outlines implications for further research, policy and practice in the Australian context.

Disability and the Global South (DGS), 2015, Vol. 2 No. 1