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

Modern, Julia

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