Activating Arts to Understand Disability in Africa

While Disability Studies has become more diversified in recent years, contemporary debates still favour the Northern Hemisphere, ignoring the lived experience of disabled people in much of the global South. Few theoretical studies pay sufficient attention to the range of beliefs and attitudes towards disability in specific African contexts, despite the fact that beliefs and explanations for disability permeate daily existence in sub-Saharan African places, and can have real consequences for persons with disabilities, leading to stigmatisation, marginalisation, and even violence.

This volume is a timely intervention that seeks to address some of these imbalances and biases. Through frank life writing, evocative poetry, and critical reflections on African arts and literatures, the contributors highlight the urgent need for more culturally informed understandings of disability, as a means by which to challenge existing explanations. They examine the powerful role of different creative forms, tools, and methodologies in enhancing understandings of disability in African contexts.

Demonstrating the power of cultural representation in building sensitivity to the range of issues related to disability, this book is of key relevance not just to scholars and students of disability studies, African studies, and sociology, but to all who seek to advocate for social change.

The volume is a key outcome of the Disability and Inclusion Africa Network. It is edited by Charlotte Baker (Lancaster University, UK), Elvis Imafidon (SOAS, University of London, UK), Kobus Moolman (University of the Western Cape, South Africa), and Emelda Ngufor Samba (University of Yaounde 1, Cameroon).