Exploring issues of disability culture, activism, and policy across the African continent, this volume argues for the recognition of African disability studies as an important and emerging interdisciplinary field. While the disability rights movement of recent decades has a rich and well-documented history, it is a history mostly focused on the Global North. Disability in Africa presents an interdisciplinary approach to cultural, health, and policy challenges that disability issues have raised throughout the African continent. The volume draws on the achievements of disability studies while acknowledging the demands and challenges of particular African contexts. The authors bring diverse methodological approaches and expertise to bear on these issues, ranging from anthropology and bioethics to special education and community rehabilitation. Essays consider indigenously African definitions of disability as well as exploring disability at the intersection of poverty, geography, and globalized biopolitics. Contributors analyze the difficulties of implementing disability policy across the continent while also being mindful of successful approaches taken at local, national, and international levels. Disability in Africa thus charts new avenues for disability studies research in and about Africa.

About the Author
Nic Hamel is finishing a PhD at the University of Texas at Austin and is also currently teaching there. TOYIN FALOLA is Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and the Jacob and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin. ERNEST COLE is Chair of the English Department and John Dirk Werkman Endowed Professor of English at Hope College, Holland, Michigan, USA.

Reviews
I encourage the readers to take in multiple texts within this book. Listen to the multiplicities of voices and perspectives; prepare yourself to challenge mainstream notions of "the handicapped" as well as popular notions in the West about inclusion and disability. You'll learn about African cultural contexts and find perspectives here that you can use to support disabled people wherever you live. -- Against the Current
This book provides much-needed insight into African perspectives on disability and contributes toward calls for the transformation and decolonization of research and practice. -- H-Net Reviews



Book Information
ISBN 9781580469715
Author Nic Hamel
Format Hardback
Page Count 452
Imprint University of Rochester Press
Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Weight(grams) 1g