Resources search

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

A central claim of this paper is that the destruction of Earth through practices of settler colonialism is inextricable from the disablement of Indigenous ontology, peoples, and communities. The disablement of land/body as a tactic of settler colonialism has persisted for centuries and takes multifarious forms. By highlighting Indigenous struggles to protect Mother Earth and her sacred resources, we suggest that Indigenous ontology, specifically relationships to land (Deloria, 1972), challenges Eurocentric/settler disability theory at the epistemological level by rejecting the taken-for-granted dualism between the environment and (disabled) humans within (settler) disability studies. Indigenous ontology, and Indigenous peoples’ experiences of settler colonialism, belie a clear bifurcation of humans and the environment, or bodies and space. Land appropriation, resource extraction, linguistic genocide, forced removal, erasure, and devastation by settlers invariably wreaks havoc on the land, spirit, livestock, and bodies of Indigenous peoples. Rejecting logics of elimination and imagining alternative futures- in opposition to the capitalist state’s projection of futures devoid of disability and Indigeneity- is essential for realizing national and bodily self-determination for non-Indigenous disabled and Indigenous peoples in the present and into the future.

Disability and the Global South, 2018, Vol.5, No. 2

Globally, Indigenous people, also known as First Peoples, have the poorest health outcomes of all population groups, resulting in significantly higher rates of chronic disease, ill-health, and disability. Recent research strongly suggests that Australian First Peoples and the Sami peoples of the Nordic region are positioned at opposite ends of the disability–health spectrum. Australia’s First Peoples, now experience the highest rates of disability in the nation’s recorded history, despite the significant government investment over recent decades in national Indigenous policy. Yet, Nordic Indigenous populations appear to have similar health outcomes and living conditions as the rest of the population in the region. In this paper, we compare some of the global assumptions of the two leading countries of the United Nations Human Development Index– Norway (ranked first) and Australia (ranked second)– and examine the ways in which such rankings act to hide the disparities of life trajectories and outcomes for Indigenous persons living with disability compared to the rest of the population in each country. The findings of the comparative analysis illustrate core areas for consideration when undertaking in-depth comparative research with First Nation’s peoples. This includes issues surrounding the differentiated political significance of national population data systems for local Indigenous peoples in their struggles for recognition, and the nuanced processes of population data categorisation that are developed as a result of First Nation’s localised struggles for recognition, respect and rights under processes of European colonisation.

Disability and the Global South, 2018, Vol.5, No. 2

This paper explores the significance of engaging with the lived experiences of disabled people in countries like Burkina Faso in order to implement long-lasting and beneficial development. It looks at the way disability was conceived of in pre-colonial times and how knowledge imported from the colonisers conflicted with, and continues to influence today, indigenous knowledge in Burkina Faso. Although Burkina Faso obtained its independence from European colonisers over fifty years ago, disability as a terrain for intervention continues to be colonised by international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) that frame their approaches in western models, which are not necessarily applicable in countries like Burkina Faso. In a context where the predominant view of disability is that of disabled people being an economic burden, many disabled people in Burkina Faso feel the need to prove themselves as economically independent; and yet development agencies often do not engage with disabled people’s voices when designing and implementing development programmes. This paper argues that there is a need to engage with disabled people’s lived experiences and knowledges through processes such as participatory video which create spaces where marginalised people’s voices can be heard and listened to by the development agencies that influence disabled people’s lives.

Disability and the Global South, 2018, Vol.5, No. 2

Given the ambiguity surrounding the extent and experience of neurocognitive disability (NCD) among marginalised Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia, evidence regarding the level and nature of NCD is crucial to ensure equitable access and inclusion into the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). This paper reports the results of the implementation of The Guddi Protocol (a culturally informed and appropriate screening protocol for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples) at two locations in Queensland. Results indicated high levels of NCD, and additional qualitative data revealed a number of factors associated with the complex disablement of study participants, namely: i) intergenerational trauma; ii) a social context of disadvantage, marginalisation and exclusion; and iii) the nonidentification of disability. The results are linked to implications for NDIS inclusion for this population, and recommendations are made. Unless the extent and nature of complex disability and the issues surrounding culturally safe policy, and service design and engagement are addressed with and by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including those who experience complex disablement, marginalised people will continue to be effectively excluded from the NDIS.

Disability and the Global South, 2018, Vol.5, No. 2

This report considers the progress being made to achieve older people's right to health amid the global drive towards universal health coverage. It explores how older people are currently accessing health services and what changes need to be made to improve on this. It considers the role of data in driving and informing changes to health systems and the services they deliver. Data must be collected with and about older people to ensure adequate evidence for service design and delivery that is targeted and appropriate. This report explores the adequacy of current data systems and collection mechanisms and how, alongside health systems, they must be adapted in an ageing world. 

This report is supported by 12 country profiles (for Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador, Kenya, Lebanon, Moldova, Myanmar, Pakistan, Serbia, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zimbabwe; see Appendix 1). These provide national information on trends in the physical and mental health status of older people, and population-level information on access to UHC. The profiles are supplemented by data mapping, showing the national data available on older people’s health in the 12 profile countries, and revealing the data gaps. The data mapping results are available at www.GlobalAgeWatch.org.

People with disabilities have been identified as a particularly marginalised and at risk group within Somali society as a result of the numerous attitudinal, environmental, and institutional barriers they face, and the lack of concerted efforts to include them . This rapid review identifies available evidence on the experiences of people with disabilities living in Somalia. It was found that there are still numerous evidence gaps in relation to the experiences of people with disabilities living in Somalia.

In 2013, the European Union (EU) mission in Zambia made a public statement about its financial support to the LGBTI community. In panic and fear, LGBTI leaders urged the EU office to withdraw the statement and encouraged other foreign missions to instead offer discrete support to the LGBTI community. This anecdote is illustrative of the experiential gap between geopolitical groups confronting a similar policy issue. For the EU, the rights of LGBTI persons are universally important; for the LGBTI community in the Zambian context, safety and discretion are more important. This paradox illustrates the challenges facing the transnationalizing of disability policy. How could we explain the fact that transnational disability actors have for the last two decades been trying to disseminate disability ‘knowledge’ and norms in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) without corresponding social policy and ideational success? This article examines this policy and ontological discrepancy. Advancing a constructivist argument, the article contends that transnational policy diffusion, largely built on colonial legacies of universalizing Western knowledge paradigms, has preoccupied itself with political institutional engagements at the expense of engaging contextspecific sociological and ideological factors, resulting in sterile legislative exercises. To develop a truly SSA-relevant disability policy infrastructure, the article proposes ideational bricolaging and translation, a constructivist process of carefully adhering to and negotiating with context-specific ideational factors that inform the disability experience in SSA countries.

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2018, Vol. 5 No. 1