Paper short abstract:

Sign language skill is a key resource for people living with deafness in accessing formal education and health services as well as gaining livelihoods. The paper will explore how the experience of deafness and sign language can be transformed into valuable assets in supportive organizations.

Paper long abstract:

Arusha, a city in northern Tanzania, has various organizations which have been engaged in deaf education, vocational training and employment of deaf people. Particularly, two different types of organizations, one for-profit and the other non-profit, have been actively involving deaf people in organizational practices.

Deaf people who sustained their deafness and hard of hearing in childhood due to disease and illness acquire sign language through participating in supportive organizations, as they were born to hearing parents. The paper aims to identify sign language as a key facilitator of capacity building for deaf people in education and employment, as well as to explore organizational structures enabling deafness and sign language to be transformed into valuable assets in creating additional value.

Sign language facilitates capacities of deaf people in dealing with adversity induced by communication barriers and social discrimination, which capacities promote their competencies in pursuing education as well as gaining livelihoods. Connectivity to signing communities enables them in accessing social and financial resources in vulnerable contexts. Sign language can be a more efficient means of communication than spoken language in a specific work environment in which deafness and sign language create additional benefits for engaged organizations.

The paper will identify enabling organizational structures in which deafness and sign language promote organizational performance through creating financial and social benefits. Also, the paper will examine constraining structures which frustrate the use of sign language and are a threat to deaf people in sustaining their livelihoods.

Paper short abstract:

Some People with Disabilities in Ghana underwent skills training through the Social Protection Program-Rehabilitation and Rlg ICT training with the goal of getting a job. Research shows that the beneficiaries feel exploited because they are still unemployed and begging by the road side.

Paper long abstract:

Ghana has many interventions or systems to eradicate poverty among vulnerable people especially those with disabilities. One of these programs is the Social Protection Program under which Rehabilitation and Rlg ICT training of People with Disabilities (PWDs) have been implemented. Rlg is the first indigenous African company to assemble laptops, desktops and mobile phones and offer ICT training in computer and phone repairs. This strategy is one of the most effective ideas to alleviate poverty among PWDs by empowering them with employable skills. In view of this, Ghana's Parliament launched the Social Protection Program in conformity with United Nations Convention on the Right of People with disabilities (UNCRPD) as well as the Disability Law of Ghana. This paper draws on a qualitative interview study and employs a phenomenological approach to examine how PWDs experience the social protection programs and its impacts under the Rlg ICT and the Rehabilitation trainings in Ghana. Based on the findings from the interviews, the participants indicated they were exploited and they had limited knowledge about the whole program. They also confirmed that, there was no significant policy implementation process or roadmap hence, they had no benefits because they are still unemployed and begging by the road side. In conclusion, my focus is to use this interpretive framework in the future to fight for justice, by creating and raising awareness of the Social Protection Programs through advocacy campaigns.

Paper short abstract:

How does technology that aids physical mobility also relate to social mobility? And how do different perceptions of the same device colour this social function? This paper considers the social life of mobility aids in Kinshasa as both symbols and tools between violence, prestige and respectability.

Paper long abstract:

'I left the stick because I was fighting all the time' the former president of a disability union expressed, 'when I became president I had to be respectable. I got crutches because I decided it was time to grow up'.

In Kinshasa, persons with physical disabilities are frequently associated with violence. In the public arena, they evoke both compassion and fear, as a stick can swiftly transform into a potentially dangerous weapon. But for the people themselves, exchanging a mobility aid associated with 'tradition' such as a stick, for one associated with 'modern technology' such as a crutch or adapted motorcycle, is evidence of economic and social personal development.

Mobility aids are central to the political economy of disability livelihoods in Kinshasa. They are not inexpensive, so having access to different kinds are a sign of success, a symbol of considerable personal resources or connections. Exchanging a stick for a crutch, or a hand-crank tricycle for a wheelchair, also comes with the lessening physical strength of growing older and an accompanying desire for respectability. The means that allow one to move about the city may both enhance and undermine one's personal and economic goals, dependent as much on its form as on its function.

How does technology that aids physical mobility also relate to social mobility? And how do different perceptions of the same device colour this social function? This paper considers the social life of mobility aids in Kinshasa as both symbols and tools between violence, prestige and respectability.

Paper short abstract:

In Uganda, assistive technologies, imported physically and conceptually from the West, are socio-technically transformed in their materiality and meaning. This paper describes how these devices are locally appropriated, so that they effect positive change in the lives of people with disabilities.

Paper long abstract:

In Kampala, the capital of Uganda, a broad variety of assistive technologies for people with mobility disabilities, such as wheelchairs, crutches, prostheses or orthoses, can be encountered. Most of these devices differ substantially, in their appearance, the processed materials or their functionality from assistive technologies, as they are known in Europe. This is surprising because these technologies have been arriving in Uganda, physically and as concepts, from industrial nations for many decades and in large quantities. Hence, it is assumed that socio-technical transformations are at work, understood as parts of a cultural appropriation process, that change assistive technologies in their materiality and meaning.

To describe this process, appropriation strategies of different actors are analyzed - of people with mobility disabilities who imagine, learn or engage in the use of such devices, and of experts who professionally work with assistive technologies, in production, modification, sale and distribution. All actors individually appropriate assistive technologies intellectually, conceptually, materially, economically, religiously, bodily, emotionally, semantically or practically. Their practices are purposeful and focus on the crafting of a good life.

Assistive technologies, as the findings of the presented research suggest, can only effect positive change in the lives of individuals, their mobility, social status, health or wealth, and society, e.g. regarding the perception of disability, after they underwent this process, were transformed and re-categorized - thus locally appropriated.

Paper short abstract:

People with disabilities in Kyangwali refugee settlement in Uganda are entitled to food aid and negotiate support by means of a categorization system based on the concept of ‘vulnerability’.

Paper long abstract:

People with disabilities living in the refugee settlement Kyangwali in Uganda are considered among the most vulnerable by UNHCR and other humanitarian actors. Therefore, they are eligible for special food aid. In order to allocate scarce resources in the best possible and just way, humanitarian actors apply a categorization system based on the concept of 'vulnerability'. The rationale behind this technology - as a device that divides and classifies with a specific purpose - is anchored in Western ideas of distribution and personhood, revealing ideals of independence and self-reliance. This paper questions what happens, when a categorization system is appropriated to a socio-economic context that is characterized by a different logic of distribution. By looking at how food aid is conceptualized and realized, but also how it is integrated in people's everyday lives and relationships, the paper discusses notions and realities of dependence and independence. The concept of 'interdependence' (Ferguson 2015; Scherz 2014) allows differentiating understandings of (aid) dependency, as it considers the importance of making claims and securing support both towards the aid agencies and within people's social networks. The categories are not merely used as a bureaucratic tool for the agencies, but are also appropriated by people with disabilities to negotiate support. In this way, the technology creates both restrictions and opportunities for people with disabilities, which the service providers are often unaware of.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation focuses on the appropriation of rights by deaf people characterizing the time from pre-, to war to post-war in Acholiland, Uganda

Paper long abstract:

Since 2006, the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities highlight a development towards the fight against discrimination and for participation of and for persons with disabilities worldwide. With the ratification of this 'idealistic technology', foremost states become responsible for its implementation. While Uganda was mentioned as a showcase of best practice regarding the ratification, it has also been criticised for its implementation. Pointing to political, economic and cultural environments of the country, the difficulties are seen in the structural aspects of the society and state. Questions about how persons with disabilities appropriate and shape the idealistic technology of human rights in rural and urban environments are widely disregarded. In this presentation I will focus on aspects and transitions of appropriation of rights by deaf people characterizing the time from pre-, to war to post war in Acholiland, Northern Uganda.

Paper short abstract:

Although assistive mobility technologies ideally make an important contribution to the safety, mobility, independence and quality of life for the elderly, elderly people with disabilities in Uganda still have to struggle with various complexities in the acquisition and use of these technologies

Paper long abstract:

Assistive technologies should improve mobility and the life of people with disabilities. For elderly people with physical impairments, the use of assistive technologies has potential to bridge the mobility gap caused by these impairments, compensate for the reduced strength and reduce dependence. Life histories, narratives and observations conducted among 30 elderly people with physical impairments in their rural home setting in Uganda has however revealed that technologies are sometimes acquired out of sympathy, social obligation by the children, or as a form of medical care by health practitioners. And for quite many elderly people, the reasons for acquiring assistive technologies are the same reasons for abandoning them; they are intended to support the reduced strength and provide independence for the elderly, but the same technologies require strength and being dependent on a helper for their use. When combined with the inaccessible environments therefore, not all elderly people are able to enjoy and benefit from the intended purpose of the mobility technologies. This paper interrogates the idea of technology translation in such complex situations and the challenges involved. The paper finally argues for proper assessment of the elderly before assistive technologies are given.

Paper short abstract:

Global and local road use technologies in Uganda influence the road access, use and safety of persons with mobility difficulties (PWMDs). The road use technologies raise questions about the citizenship of PWMDs, trap PWMDs in a state of negotiating citizenship, making their citizenship contested.

Paper long abstract:

This paper analyzes how the global and local road use technologies are linked to and/or influence the citizenship of persons with mobility difficulties (PWMDs—having impaired lower limbs and visual impairment). Focus is placed on how road design, construction and repair processes influence road access, use and safety of PWMDs. Roads in Uganda, particularly Kampala are narrow, congested, with crossing barriers, potholes, some lack pedestrian paths, have invisible zebra crossings, pavements that are not maneuverable—hosting flower pots, electric poles, garbage containers, boda-boda and taxi parking lots, gullies, dysfunctional traffic lights or functional but not followed by instructing traffic officers. Marram roads are muddy and slippery or dusty. These artifacts—hardware road use technologies were analysed alongside software technologies including; institutional structures, actors, policies and laws. Qualitative interviews, observations and extended case studies conducted with PWMDs and key informants in Kampala revealed that hardware road use technologies combine with the software technologies to influence road access, use by and safety of PWMDs. These technologies raise questions about citizenship of PWMDs. They present challenges for PWMDs which they nonetheless muddle through and negotiate their ways to their destinations. The technologies are less sensitive to the extra road use needs of PWMDs. We conclude that: PWMDs are trapped in a state of negotiating citizenship; their experiences lay bare the inherent contradictions in the notion of citizenship; and that citizenship of PWMDs is contested.

Key words:

Disability, Road Use Technologies, Contested Citizenship, Uganda

Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that while the sociality of the deaf people shapes their (in)abilities to access and utilize communication technologies; at the same time, the technologies influence the social relations of the deaf people.

Paper long abstract:

Today, communication technologies are increasingly becoming the means of disseminating health education messages. Often the assumption is that the use of technologies will lead to faster ways, more accurate and effective dissemination of health education messages, and as a result an improvement in prevention, access to health services and better life conditions in general. This paper analyzes how communication technologies are appropriated by Deaf persons in order to access HIV and AIDS education messages in Uganda. How do deaf persons access and utilize communication technologies? What determines what technologies are appropriated? I will argue that technologies are not passive tools but constitutive parts of networks linking human and non-human actors. While the sociality of the deaf people shapes their (in)abilities to access and utilize communication technologies; at the same time, the technologies influence the social relations of the deaf people. The analysis is based on 112 interviews of Deaf persons followed by five follow-up cases in Kampala - Uganda. Focus was placed on radio, televisions, bill boards/ posters, phones, and newspapers as the artefact technologies, and the organizational and institutional structures to which they are linked. Findings show that technology user groups (e.g whatsapp groups) have been formed, new friends made by Deaf persons in the process of appropriating these technologies. Emphasis should not only be put on the technology itself (how appropriate) focus should also be placed on the social relations the deaf people are involved in and how these shape the appropriation of the communication technologies

Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the technology of mobility for people with physical disabilities living in a South African urban setting. It describes specific opportunities for people using a wheelchair to design their city and its transports by opposing or co-operating with local authorities.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on the technology of mobility for people with physical disabilities living in a South African poor urban setting. This paper moves away from a perspective that exposes only limitations in order to underline specific opportunities for people using wheelchairs to (re) design the city individually and collectively, in formal and informal ways.

In the township of Mitchell's Plain well known for its daily violence, defining when and where using the chair involves a negotiation of moral and medical norms with a pursuit of security. In this process, the wheelchair must be analysed as one element of a broader continuum of mobility, where public and private systems are used as complement or replacement for the chairs. The availability of these complements enhances already present inequalities among people with disabilities as well as gender norms around the occupation of space.

Two systems of public transport, namely Dialaride (specialised transport) and MyCity bus (mainstream service), will be further discussed. Initiatives of the City of Cape Town, they are the origins of discussion and complaint from people with disabilities. I will show how, through co-operation with or opposition to the local government, associations of people with disabilities participate actively in their recognition by the authorities and in their inclusion in the post-apartheid city. My conclusions draw upon sixteen months of participant observation call up the theoretical framework of the anthropology of material things and the sociology of space.

Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to explore the ambiguous relation between devices and people with physical disability in the urban context of Mekelle, the capital city of Tigray (Ethiopia). It investigates how devices are distributed and how they are experienced by people with disability in everyday life.

Paper long abstract:

It is April 2015. I'm with Rahel in her house, we are drinking ethiopian coffee and I'm drawing her portrait. Looking at the painting, she tells me: "You forgot Awetasc!" And she points at her crutch. Rahel is a woman with physical disability, a victim of polio. She does not agree with that biomedical Explanatory Model: according to her, when she was young, a spirit named nefyio took her, got angry and left these signs on her body. Rahel named her crutch Awetasc: in Tigrinya, it literally means "something that allows you to go out". Do devices help people with disability in the urban context of Mekelle, the capital city of Tigray, where environmental barriers are widespread and transportation means are not accessible?

This paper aims to shed light on the institutions involved in spreading a "culture of rehabilitation" and distributing devices (crutches, wheelchairs or bambula, prosthesis). Moreover, it questions the ways in which people face with them: in some cases they are perceived as useful helps; in others, they are considered as something requiring a hard process of adjustment and remarking a bodily difference. How is the "deviced" body experienced? Are there some "techniques of the body" (Mauss, 1965) resisting to the biopolitical device imposed by the culture of rehabilitation? I will try to answer these questions through the evidences collected during an ethnographic fieldwork carried out between October 2014 and August 2015 in the Regional State of Tigray, Ethiopia.

Paper short abstract:

The article addresses how technology and disability was addressed as 'humanist' addressing 'equality' in the slogan 'Homme Comme Toi' and how this ideology has changed over time. In particular I pay attention to orthopedic technology and to the transnational and translocal connections that emerged over time.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation, I start with an analysis of Zamenga Batukezanga's book 'Homme comme Toi' (A Person Like Yourself) in which he advanced a humanist African perspective of disabled people as being 'equal'. First, I make an analysis of how this equality was to be achieved within the context of the center KIKESA, a formal center for professional training of people with disabilities, skilled professionalism, and work as a condition for worth and recognition. I address the training of the orthopedic technician, especially its link to technical and material conditions. Second, I make an analysis of Zamenga's analysis of modern African life and the progression of KIKESA under its two other founders, Mr. Nkakudulu and Mr. Vanda, referring to the relationships between KIKESA, the Congolese state, and transnational connections, particularly in the context of development aid. Here I will focus on the nature of aid in its capability of technology transfer, the creation of 'development cemeteries'. Third, I focus on the potentials of recreating hope through the next generation of leaders, which is also diasporic, and the next generation of development aid which can be called 'translocal'. I investigate how a translocal approach can avoid the pitfalls of earlier collaborations.