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Claiming ‘disability’ and being ‘a weak person’: legal and relational approaches to bodilymental difference in western Uganda

Modern, Julia

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Abstract

This article, based on eighteen months of fieldwork with an organization of women with disabilities in Uganda, considers discourses about bodilymental variation that circulated among members and non-members of the organization. I identify two common discourses, based on the words obulema (disability) and abaceke (weak people). The terms are linguistically and conceptually divergent. Obulema (disability) is an individual condition, referencing a non-normative embodied state that conveys disadvantage. Conversely, recognizing someone as an omuceke (a weak person) requires attending to a person’s bodymind and their socio-economic circumstances and relationships. While obulema is an objectified individual category connected to citizenship and defined through the legal-political realm, whether someone is an omuceke is determined interpersonally. Following Oche Onazi’s suggestion that rights-based and relational approaches to disability justice, while fundamentally different, might not be incompatible, I investigate their interaction during a land dispute between a woman with visual impairment and her neighbours. I combine analysis of how different ways of talking about bodilymental difference invoke divergent logical forms of obligations with attention to the relational contexts in which these obligations apply in practice. This novel approach offers a resource for understanding the complex intersections between discourses about bodymind variation, particularly in postcolonial settings.

Citation

Modern, J. (2025). Claiming ‘disability’ and being ‘a weak person’: legal and relational approaches to bodilymental difference in western Uganda. Africa, 95(1), 21-41. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972025000130

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jan 10, 2025
Publication Date Feb 1, 2025
Deposit Date Feb 22, 2025
Publicly Available Date Feb 2, 2125
Print ISSN 0001-9720
Electronic ISSN 1750-0184
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 95
Issue 1
Pages 21-41
DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972025000130
Keywords Disability, Uganda, Access to land
Publisher URL https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/claiming-disability-and-being-a-weak-person-legal-and-relational-approaches-to-bodilymental-difference-in-western-uganda/60BD2069991CABAAF9E001D9A3D68B11

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