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Purpose: The concepts of disability were explored from a Samoan cultural frame. The impact of disability conceptualisations on identity development and cultural inclusion were assessed through the Samoan language. The study also evaluated the extent of endorsement of global policy initiatives at a local level.

Methods: Through facilitating a Talanoa approach, which is a rich cultural tradition of sharing knowledge, space emerged for dialogue around the lived experiences of members of the disability community in Samoa.

Results: Incongruous conceptualisations of disability were identified as a contributing factor in the persistence of stigmatising attitudes and beliefs. Borrowing concepts and terms from moral, medical, and social disability models, this disparity of conceptualisation is reflected in Samoan disability terminology. It was also found that while global policy initiatives are generally politically embraced, they engage more effectively with the community when they areunderpinned by Samoan cultural ontologies.

Conclusion: The findings suggest that multiple ideologies regarding rights, capabilities and experiences, challenge the development of identity, self-worth, and inclusion. There is significant value in merging cultural concepts with a social disability model framework. It is important to future development that people with disability can express a sense of cultural identity without risking the right to inclusion and equality.

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

There are three key revelations from literature on disability and armed conflict in the Global South. First, though disability is a relative term, models from the Global North are widely used irrespective of indigenous knowledges and contexts. Second, though disability is caused by colonial and post-colonial inequalities such as poverty, disabled people are often forgotten in poverty reduction programmes. Third, while many countries experience armed conflict, little is known about its effects on disabled people living in contexts of armed conflict. This realisation led to the aims of this study which were to: i) investigate how disability is understood in the armed conflict setting of Uganda; ii) to understand the experiences of disabled people in armed conflict settings; and iii) examine ways of improving the experience of disabled people in the Global South. Using a critical, constructivist and grounded research methodology, the study revealed the nature of ‘African disabilities’ and the challenges faced by disabled people living in conflict settings: displacement, dehumanisation, rampant poverty and neo-colonialism. Disabled people experience rejection in their communities and invisibility in the provision of services. Using literature as a dialogue partner, this study concludes that the ways in which disabled people are treated runs counter to many African beliefs on what it means to be human and live in a community. Consequently, it proposes a theory which contains critical knowledge on how the Africanisation of disability could be thought of and brought about in conflict settings.

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