Alternative Explanations: Disability and Inclusion in Africa

This collaboratively conceived project will establish the Disability and Inclusion in Africa network. Working across disciplines, the project will engage Arts and Humanities research to enhance disability inclusion in international development.

Discourses of disability are often created by medical professionals, social scientists or development agencies, and most often in the global north, quite removed from the realities experienced on the ground. This project focuses on the central theme of 'alternative explanations' for disability in African contexts to invite discussion of a range of beliefs and attitudes towards disability, which may include assumptions and misconceptions, traditional beliefs, religious beliefs, medical determinism, supernatural or witchcraft-related beliefs. By increasing awareness of the impact of these alternative explanations, the network will contribute to understandings of the ways in which approaches to inclusion in international development programmes and strategies can be enhanced.

Building on new and existing partnerships, the Disability and Inclusion in Africa network will forge international dialogue between researchers and stakeholders at a series of events and exhibitions in Nigeria, Cameroon, Tanzania, South Africa and the UK. The project not only responds to gaps in scholarship, but the culturally-informed research that will emerge from the project aims to bring about a step-change in the way in which disability studies is approached within and beyond Africa, and in the way in which disability is understood by stakeholders in communities, civil society and international development.

The Disability and Inclusion in Africa network will bring together policy makers, advocates, representatives from NGOs, local community leaders, representatives of local disability groups and academics. Its work will focus on foregrounding the voices of people who have been the object of disability discourses and diversifying the narratives associated with disability to enhance disability inclusion in international development.

Through a series of workshops in four ODA recipient countries and a final conference in the UK, the network will connect academic researchers with non-academic civil society actors and policy makers. The network will create an international forum for people with disabilities and those who work with, represent and advocate for them, to share their experiences and ideas for solutions to enhancing the inclusion of people with disabilities. The involvement of project partners and representatives of local disability organisations in the network events will provide opportunities for sharing practice and expertise and networking.

A series of exhibitions will be organised to accompany each of the network workshops to share the local stories and narratives that have been gathered during fieldwork from people with disabilities, activists, NGOs, academics and disability organizations who have been the object of disability discourses. These will be shared via the network's website and will inform the project's outputs.

Importantly, the network will disseminate local knowledge and expertise to international development policy makers and practitioners in the UK and beyond, nuancing the visions of development set out in the UN 2030 SDGs. Representatives from DFID country offices and from our partner organizations, which are on the front line of development work in sub-Saharan Africa, will be invited to participate in the workshops. Organizations including the Department for International Development (DFID), the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Disability Rights UK, Oxfam and Scope will participate in the conference at Lancaster University, building on established links with some of these institutions and developing new relationships.

We will also work to influence UK development policy through the co-production of a policy report with DFID officials. Findings will be disseminated through them and via the website, academic publications, and through the networks of participants, including the ODI.

The project website will further act as a forum for exchanging experiences and ideas and will articulate some of the experiences and ideas of people on the front line of disability politics across sub-Saharan Africa. It will carry reports of the workshops in each of the localities, a virtual version of the final exhibition, and will also host an open blog space where network members can discuss and debate.