This chapter examines cultural practices about learners living with disabilities in the South African context. This involves the role of beliefs, culture, and even the values in the community and the creation of the school curriculum. The Ubuntu concept lies at the heart of the African way of life and impacts on every aspect of people's well-being. Ubuntu is actually regarded as the soul force that drives almost every facet of societal life in African societies and that creates the relationship between the African community. Ubuntu in the South African context or society is seen as the act of being human, caring, sympathy, empathy, forgiveness, or any values of humanness towards others. Ubuntu is a capacity in South African culture that expresses compassion, reciprocity, dignity, harmony, and humanity in the interest of building and maintaining a community with justice and mutual caring. The consequences of failure to embrace Ubuntu in South African schools manifests itself through learner indiscipline and staff not respecting each other.
Top19.1 Introduction
The literature about disability and decolonisation in disability studies has primarily been shaped by academics located in the Global North (Connell, 2011; Grech, Meekosha, 2011), even though this is slowly changing (Gcaza, Hutton, MacLachlan, Mji & Swartz, 2011; Opini, 2016). Despite this state of decolonisation does not have to be epistemologically nor ontologically located within the imaginaries of elite northern academics. Examining the social and cultural history of the African continent tells a completely different story and illustrates how Africans have formulated and shaped theories as well as actions of decolonisation and relationships to disability in their own epistemological and transnational terms. As such, this chapter does not seek to decentre but argues that theory and the links to activist practice have always been located in the global south even in its hybrid or transnational forms (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2012; de Sousa Santos, 2015). It seeks to examine the implications of the continent’s rich and diverse legacy, in terms of activism and social movements, to celebrate and learn from.
In Africa, there is a multiplicity of interpretations of ‘disability’ from: depictions found in oral histories, music, dance, ritual, (secret) society practices of different ethnic groups; the colonial and postcolonial histories of medical segregation and prevention; how differing religions, evangelical and missionary services and their organisations understand disability; the measurements and international standards set by international organisations such as the World Health Organization, as well as how these institutions demarcate differences to disease, illness and impairment; the influence of the disability movements that ascribe to various definitions of disability and their advocacy on international and national policy agendas linked to human rights, development and now sustainability; the ‘persons with disabilities’ definition advocated by the United Nations (UN) and enshrined in legislation in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and how that becomes translated nationally and implicated bureaucratically in the machinery of the state; the theories and models of disability that international organisations, civil societies and non-governmental organisations are working with; how radio, TV and social media are impacting disability; and how everyday popular culture, music and the arts define and people understand what disability entails.
In this chapter, we examine disability in terms of ubuntu. Southern African scholars and disability activists have argued that ubuntu or unhu is a part of their world view – a philosophy of shared collective humanness and responsibility (Berghs, Chataika, Mateta & Shava, 2015; Hutton et al., 2011; Opini, 2016). We elucidate what ubuntu means and then examine how it connects to social action. The aim is to shine a light on what African discourses and practices can teach about disability. How disability becomes defined and framed, implications of this for people’s lived experience and what we can learn about the future direction of disability studies.