Disablement, Disability and the Nigerian Society

This paper seeks to examine the question of disability in developing countries, particularly Nigeria. Most of the diseases causing disabilities are preventable. Many of these are infections which could be prevented with medical care.

The perception of handicapping conditions by most Nigerians it is argued, are greatly influenced by myth and superstition, which in turn influences the negative attitude of people towards disabled people.

The lack of medical facilities has contributed to the spread of common diseases which otherwise would have been controlled or eradicated, as is the case in developed countries like Britain and America.

Rights of disabled people are emphasized. This includes the right to an education and the right of access into buildings. Fortunately, there are moves towards the attainment of these basic rights in various sectors, particularly the University of Jos which has the largest concentration of blind students in one single institution of higher learning.     

Support and Access in Sports and Leisure Provision

This paper will look at different ways of enabling people with learning difficulties to engage in leisure opportunities: the Support Model and the Access Model. These models will be put in their social context and then critiqued.

The support model will be be contextualised in the theory of normalisation, access in disability theory. The support worker role will be shown to be useful in motivating people with learning difficlties into new activities, as well as having a protecting element, and unwittingly, disguise the level of discrimination people with learning difficulties are subject to.

The access worker role will be shown to have strengths in understanding discrimi nation. With this analysis, it has the potential to dismantle disabling practices. However, the needs of people with learning difficulties have ramifications for disability theory. In practice, that means that ideas of self-advocacy need to be taken on board.

Through interviews with sports personnel, social workers and people with learning difficulties, the implications of creating fully comprehensive access will be examined. I will conclude that both effective support and comprehensive access must be in place before people with learning difficulties are able to make a meaningful choice as to how they are enabled to participate in sports. It is only at that point of choice that the two models become complementary rather than competing discourses of provision.     

No African renaissance without disabled women: a communal approach to human development in Cape Town South Africa

The African Renaissance is upon us. Those who have eyes to see, let them see.

Disabled women who live in wooden shacks in the peri-urban areas of Khayelitsha in Cape Town, South Africa, participated in storytelling workshops over a two-and-a-half-year period. They shared experiences of what helped or hindered their social and economic development since becoming disabled. The workshops were part of a participatory action research (PAR) study of the Division of Occupational Therapy, University of Cape Town, together with Disabled People South Africa (DPSA) and the Zanempilo Health Trust [formerly South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) Primary Health Care Project].

The findings revealed the struggles and sadness, as well as the strengths and spirit that the women experienced within their every day context at an individual, family and community level. The women spoke strongly about meeting physical, emotional, and spiritual needs (human development) as the means to social and economic development.

The discussion reflects on the many paradoxes of disability encapsulated in the essence of interdependence of Ubuntu. Three themes discussed are building emotional resourcefulness: nurturing children and families in disability issues; and renewing spirituality and Ubuntu in disability and development programmes. In conclusion, managing the paradoxes of disability, the creation of a new individual and collective identity, and the capacity to change are proposed as the way forward.     

听障青少年的污名及其应对策略

任何人类差异都可能成为污名的对象。在社会差别的分类审视下,听障青少年遭遇的污名类型多种多样。从综合视角来看,可分为三类:形象可怕怪异,令人恐惧;身体无用低能,形同朽木;境遇窘迫不堪,让人可怜。在面对这些污名威胁时,他们管理身体与预设的规则体系进行周旋,业已发展出三种污名应对技术:一是身体改造,常态身体的追求;二是身体装扮,秘密信息的管理;三是身体抗争,弱者的对话方式。研究此问题,不仅有利于我们走进听障群体的世界,帮助他们远离污名的困扰,也可以增加社会的相互理解、信任与支持,推动社会的和谐融合。     

Albinism in Malawi: knowledge and beliefs from an African setting

This article is based on a qualitative project which has set out to examine knowledge, beliefs and behaviour related to people living with albinism in Malawi. Individual, in-depth interviews were carried out with 25 people with albinism and their family members. The findings show that most people with albinism, as well as their families, have very little knowledge about albinism, but many know and experience that the skin of people with albinism is very sensitive to the sun, and therefore take precautions to prevent injury. Stories of common myths were told, as well as stories of different relationships that are altered as a result of albinism. Stories were also told of love and approval of people with albinism. In Malawi people with albinism are considered, and consider themselves to be, disabled.     

Stigma Management Among Gay/Bisexual Men with HIV/AIDS

People with HIV infection are subjected to prejudice, discrimination and hostility related to the stigmatization of AIDS. To manage the stigma of their disease, they mount complex coping strategies. This paper reports results from a qualitative study that examined gay/bisexual men's experiences of living with HIV infection. Unstructured interviews from a diverse sample of 139 men were analyzed to examine how men coped with AIDS-related stigma. We discerned a variety of stigma management strategies that could be arranged along a continuum from reactive to proactive based on the extent to which they implicitly accepted or challenged the social norms and values that underlie the stigmatization of HIV/AIDS. Reactive strategies to cope with stigma involve defensive attempts to avoid or mitigate the impact of stigma, but imply acceptance of the underlying social norms and values that construct the stigma. Examples of reactive strategies include hiding one's HIV status, presenting one's illness as a less stigmatizing one (e.g., cancer), or distancing one's self from more damaging aspects of AIDS-stigma (e.g., attributing infection to blood transfusion). Proactive strategies challenge the validity of the stigma and imply disavowal and resistance of the social norms and values that underlie the stigma. Examples of proactive strategies include engaging in public educational efforts that address misperceptions about HIV transmission and social activism to change the social and political conditions that affect PWA/HIV.     

残疾污名的研究进展与展望

残疾污名是针对残疾人负面的刻板印象而引发的偏见和歧视,其消极影响渗透残疾人个人生活和社会参与的诸多方面。现有研究对其成因的解释越来越注重社会文化背景因素。公众污名和自我感知污名是污名测量的主要内容,使用的方法以外显态度测量和内隐社会认知方法为主。当下残疾污名干预的研究主要围绕增加群际接触来改变公众对残疾群体的偏见,采用积极心理干预改变个体自我认知,通过融合教育塑造包容、共享的社会文化三个方面来进行。未来研究可以围绕污名影响的保护机制、残疾人内化污名的差异、残疾污名测量的优化、污名干预效果的评估及干预方式的改进等方面进行。     

Construction and Management of Stigma Based on a Voluntary‐Achieved Status

Previous research on stigma has focused on ascribed personal attributes that are either impossible or difficult to change. Less is known, however, about how people voluntarily join stigmatized groups and manage stigma based on an achieved status. This paper sought to answer this question by focusing on stigma management strategies used by a Humans vs. Zombies (HvZ) gaming organization in a southeastern university. Data were collected through four months of fieldwork and twelve interviews with HvZ gamers and moderators. Results showed that gamers' decision to join the group reflected their effort to strengthen a sense of moral worth. Furthermore, in order to keep receiving this benefit and minimize potential costs, they used three strategies to manage their stigma based on the voluntary, achieved status: (1) by “othering” stereotypical members; (2) by challenging the stereotype; and (3) by reappropriating the stigma. As they employed these strategies, gamers drew on social discourses available in the organizational and life course context.     

Time, Place and Competence: Society and History in the Writings of Robert Edgerton

This is an article by an historian about the work of an American anthropologist and social scientist who has for many years observed, recorded and participated in the lives of the mentally handicapped. It had its origins in a dissatisfaction with existing histories of retardation and a desire to seek out twentieth century sociological perspectives with relevance to and resonances for earlier periods.

The paper falls into three sections. The first describes and analyses the polarity-social competence and incompetence within given cultures-which is central to Edgerton's conception of what he terms 'socio-cultural retardation'. This is followed by an evaluation of The Cloak of Competence [1], which concentrates on the interactions between deinstitutionalisation, stigma and passing for normal. A concluding section returns, by means of an examination of the validity of the notion of a 'retarded community', to a final interrogation of the causes as well as the meanings and contradictions implicit in 'socio-cultural retardation'. Attention is also briefly given to the ways in which historians, and explicitly historical methodologies, can contribute to further research within the general paradigm which Edgerton has pioneered.     

Stars are not Born: An Interpretive Approach to the Politics of Disability

The politics of disability are usually interpreted as attempts to influence government policy in the direction of reducing the negative effects of impairment. This paper enlarges that conventional notion to include attention to how the disabled subject is produced by the discursive practices within which disability is administered.

A summary of epistemological perspectives represented by contemporary social thought dealing with disability opens the discussion. Foucault's work is presented as the basis for interpreting recent social science literature on disability from a viewpoint which is sensitive to variations in epistemological presuppositions in that literature and to the political implications of each mode of research for the administration and treatment of disability.

A concluding section contains speculation on forms of political action which are relevant to the politics of disability at the constitutive level.     

Women with Disabilities: Abortion and Liberation

In this, the United Nations Decade of the Disabled, much is being done to improve the lives of those with disabilities, and to enable them to participate as equals in the everyday life of their communities.

At the same time, however, more and more technological 'advances' are being deployed to detect handicap in the unborn, with the aim of killing as many of them as possible before birth.

Feminists, though accustomed to fighting for the emancipation of women, are failing to address this incongruous situation, and the double discrimination faced by women with disabilities. This is partly due to the fact that they tend to regard abortion as an unequivocal 'right'.

I will argue that far from being a right, abortion underlines women's oppression and is counter-productive to women in general, and to disabled women in particular.     

Enhancing the Social Relevance of Evaluation Practice

We argue that the social relevance of evaluation research is dependent upon two issues: the extent which evaluation practice reflects the values underlying social policies and the political reality of the policy implementation process. The evaluation of community based residential services should, therefore, reflect those values implicit in the formulation and implementation of the policy of 'deinstitutionalisation'.

Evaluation strategies are outlined that focus upon: (1) evaluating the extent to which the residential environment reflects the values of the surrounding culture, (2) quantifying the extent to which service users are actually living in the 'community', and (3) assessing outcomes significant to the quality of life of service users.     

The effectiveness of stigma coping orientations: can negative consequences of mental illness labeling be avoided?

Recent research has assigned a prominent role to labeling and stigma as factors that impair the social and psychological functioning of people officially labeled mentally ill. But can the effects of labeling and stigma be overcome by adopting a few simple approaches to coping with these problems? If so, the stigma-induced problems of social awkwardness, demoralization and unemployment emphasized by recent research may not be as severe as claimed. Using a sample of psychiatric patients, we examine this issue by assessing whether patients can ameliorate labeling effects by keeping their history of treatment a secret, educating others about their situation, or avoiding situations in which rejection might occur. None of these coping orientations were effective in diminishing negative labeling effects on unemployment or on psychological distress/demoralization. In fact, the three coping strategies show consistent effects in the direction of producing more harm than good, and with respect to withdrawal-avoidance this effect is significant. Based on these results we argue that stigma is powerfully reinforced by culture and that its effects are not easily overcome by the coping actions of individuals. Using C. Wright Mills's (1967) distinction we conclude that labeling and stigma are "social problems" not "individual troubles."     

The storyscapes of teenage pregnancy. On morality,embodiment, and narrative agency

Young women tell different stories about teenage pregnancies. Their stories are embedded in the storyscape of their environment, which offers a limited set of narratives. Normative discourses influence the stories young women tell about their pregnancies. Social norms and stigma play an important role in the construction of the meaning of teenage pregnancies. However, the embodiment of being pregnant constitutes meaning as well. This paper draws on findings from a qualitative study conducted in 2015 among 46 young Dutch women who got pregnant before their 20th birthday. Our study explores how young women navigate the moral arena when they are confronted with a teenage pregnancy and which role the embodiment of pregnancy plays in the construction of social meanings. The concept of storyscapes visualises how young women are constrained by their embeddedness in multiple storyscapes, defined by different and often contrasting audiences. Nevertheless, our study indicates that the momentum of pregnancy can offer agentic possibilities to take up another position towards their social environment and develop narrative agency.     

Labeling albinism: language and discourse surrounding people with albinism in Tanzania

This article is based on a qualitative study that set out to analyze the labels and terms attached to 28 people affected by albinism in villages in Kilolo district, Tanzania. Even though national and international attention to killings of people with albinism has attempted to improve general knowledge of albinism and reduce discrimination, most of the community members within the study had little knowledge of the (bio)medical explanations for albinism and tended to marginalize people with albinism. Framed within a wider moral discourse on illness, disability and socially appropriate behavior, albinism is mostly considered to be God’s will or the consequence of past misdeeds within the family, and many of the existing labels for people with albinism express such ideas.     

Reducing mental illness stigma and fostering empathic citizenship: Community arts collaborative approach

An art therapy-informed community arts project to reduce stigma towards people living with mental illness in Hong Kong included three phases: 1) a public exhibition to raise awareness; 2) a workshop for viewers to create response art and generate approaches to alleviate stigma; and 3) a forum for people living with mental illness and viewers to create art and discuss programmatic recommendations. Results suggested that: 1) art exhibits paired with reflection fostered empathy; 2) creating art promoted a wider perspective and initiated dialogue; and 3) collaborative art making facilitated meaningful interaction. These findings offer promising strategies for art and social change.     

Being Middle Eastern American: Identity Negotiation in the Context of the War on Terror

Using in‐depth interviews with naturalized U.S. citizens and immigrants as well as autoethnographic data, the author examines the stigma management strategies Middle Eastern Americans deploy, particularly in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks. He applies the concepts of interpretive practice and accounting to narratives of disrupted encounters in which Middle Eastern Americans were prompted to explain their identities, and classifies the stigma management strategies this group utilizes into five types of accounting: humorous, educational, defiant, cowering, and passing. This article evaluates the strengths and drawbacks of each accounting type for combating stigma and discusses how these findings inform existing scholarship on the social construction of deviant identities and their management in everyday life.     

Intersections of Stigma,Mental Health,and Sex Work: How Canadian Men Engaged in Sex Work Navigate and Resist Stigma to Protect Their Mental Health

Men engaged in sex work experience significant stigma that can have devastating effects for their mental health. Little is known about how male sex workers experience stigma and its effects on mental health or their strategies to prevent its effects in the Canadian context. This study examined the interrelationships between stigma and mental health among 33 Canadian indoor, male sex workers with a specific goal of understanding how stigma affected men’s mental health and their protective strategies to mitigate against its effects. Men experienced significant enacted stigma that negatively affected their social supports and ability to develop and maintain noncommercial, romantic relationships. Men navigated stigma by avoidance and resisting internalization. Strategy effectiveness to promote mental health varied based on men’s perspectives of sex work as a career versus a forced source of income. Programming to promote men’s mental health must take into consideration men’s diverse strategies and serve to build social supports.