African Renaissance as a Premise for Reimagined Disability Studies in Africa

Abstract

Disability studies globally is concerned, in various ways, with questions of systemic injustices and inequities that persons with disabilities are subjected to. Persons with disabilities are often positioned as the objects of research rather than equal thinkers and knowledge bearers in their own right. These issues are amplified in the context of African societies, where access is even more challenging than in wealthier countries, and many persons with disabilities are excluded from education altogether. This situation reinforces their epistemic vulnerability. As such, there is limited work on doing disability research from the frame of reference of those in these African societies. This article operates at the nexus of two scholarly traditions. The first of these is the field of disability studies, which is generally dominated by Global North thinking than ideas and experiences from the Global South, and which has addressed questions of knowledge and participation quite extensively, but most commonly in high-income countries. The second is the long-standing political and epistemological African Renaissance lens for understanding and rebelling against imperialism and neo-colonial advances in formerly colonized African societies. I integrate and engage these two scholarly traditions to contribute to charting possibilities of what critical disability studies might look like and mean, from the premise of an African Renaissance. Central to this discussion is building on African theorization while also challenging the dominating and hegemonic white-centric theorization that dominates the field and epistemology in general.