An Ubuntu approach to disability and inclusive development for women with disabilities

Abstract

Background: Vicious cycles of disability and poverty isolate disabled women, making it difficult for them to meet their own and their family’s human needs. Their exclusion and deprivations may be bridged through inclusive development processes. The article presents an Afro-centric approach to inclusive development that speaks to experiences of disabled women who lived in informal settlements in the Cape Town metropole, South Africa that also has relevance for marginalised and oppressed communities in the Global North.

Objectives: To describe how human scale development (HSD) as a conceptual framework resonates with Ubuntu values and principles to enable individual and collective action spaces to overcome human poverties.

Method: Reflexivity was done to explicate and further conceptualise an Ubuntu approach to community-based inclusive development for disabled women.

Results: Analysis revealed the centrality of Ubuntu values in effecting social change through bi-directional shifts in self and collective identities, and a spirituality of disability. Themes included Disability as a burden (deprivation), and Disability as a gain (a potentiality). Five development opportunities emerged: enhanced self-identity; strengthened family life; sustained livelihood; community rehabilitation workers as brokers to facilitate access to health and social services; and information.

Conclusion: Ubuntu as an African philosophy draws on indigenous knowledge systems that provide an Afro-centric approach to inclusive development of disabled women. Ubuntu promotes a reflexive, person-centred and collective approach to human development at the micro-level.

Contribution: Harnessing the power of learning to listen deeply to each other’s stories facilitates the interdependence and spirituality of Ubuntu to create supportive, inclusive development.