Transitioning to a life with disability in rural South Africa: A qualitative study

Abstract

Background: Adjustment to the onset of disability has complex reverberations relating to both socially engendered disadvantage and the realities of functional limitation. Pre-existing ways of understanding disability can meaningfully shape this experience.Objective: This study aimed to provide an exploratory understanding of the experience of becoming disabled in a low-income, under-served, rural South African community. In particular, it was interested in how people with disabilities constructed their struggle within the conceptual split between disadvantage caused by ‘malfunctioning’ bodies (a ‘medical model’ view) and that caused by social organisation (a ‘social model’ view).Methods: Seven people between the ages of 39 and 47 who had acquired a physical disability within the last 4 years were recruited in a rural area of Limpopo province, South Africa. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted, and the resulting data were thematically analysed. The authors were positioned as both ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ to the participants and sought to use this orientation to best understand and stay faithful to participants’ views while simultaneously applying participant’s experiences to conceptual knowledge in disability studies.Results: Four themes emerged: (1) emotional impact of onset of disability, (2) being introduced to disablist prejudice, (3) being required to take on a ‘disabled’ identity and (4) socio-economic implications of becoming disabled. The findings reflected a complex set of adverse experiences in the lives of the participants, spanning disadvantages based on embodied, cultural, relational and environmental factors, which were superimposed on existing, generalised poverty in their local communities. Participants made sense of their predicament in multiple, evolving ways.Conclusion: This study contributes to the understanding of the complex predicaments, and sense-making, of persons who have acquired a disability in a rural, impoverished Global South environment.

Religion and the everyday citizenship of people with dementia in Nigeria: A qualitative study

“…It was, therefore, important to adopt a qualitative research design to facilitate an in-depth exploration of the participants’ life world or lived experiences (Creswell & Poth 2016). Qualitative research is particularly well-suited for providing detailed and comprehensive descriptions of human experiences, necessitating researchers to acknowledge their roles as co-constructors of knowledge, which may be influenced by their identities and positionality (Denzin & Lincoln 2011 ; Sadiki, Watermeyer & Abrahams 2021 ). Semi-structured interviews were conducted to elicit information from participants.…”

Short and Locked Down: The Impact of COVID-19 on a Person With Dwarfism

“…Indeed “access to space creates a sense of citizenship” (Heylighen & Strickfaden, 2012, p. 182)—am I not a citizen in my own society? Undoubtedly, struggling to access basic aspects needed for life “embodies an attack on dignity” (Sadiki et al, 2021, p. 9). Taking it further, these powerful effects of the normalized, able-bodied, taken-for-granted relations of bodies, spaces, and cultures are ingrained to the point of disabling anyone who differs from the norm (Schillmeier, 2020).…”

“…. the dependency of people with disabilities” (Sadiki et al, 2021, p. 9). (Reluctantly) asking for assistance from (able-bodied) members of the public to reach items down for me has been met with a noticeably greater hesitancy in these pandemic times.…”