Abstract
This anthropological study describes how disabled activist and politicians transcend race segregation, exclusions, discrimination and make disability and ability in disability real in the eyes of the nation. Based upon interviews with 15 parliamentarians with disability (MP) and participations observation in the National Parliament, between 2005 and 2006, this article disentangle inclusion/ exclusion in a particular historical context and situate the role disabled politicians in building a new South Africa. In post-apartheid, exclusion is linked to ‘disadvantage communities’. These new political positions created can be traced back to the introduction of ubuntu as connected with disability and ability in new nation, as well as the association between physical disability and the structural disabilities associated with the apartheid regime. Such political narrative strategies served to create a new broad relational understanding of disability, bringing new political capital to people with disabilities and interconnect disability in the new nationhood.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15017419.2013.859177 | Journal eISSN: 1745-3011
Language: English
Page range: 258 - 271
Submitted on: Mar 21, 2013
Accepted on: Oct 21, 2013
Published on: Nov 3, 2015
Published by: Stockholm University Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Keywords:
© 2015 Camilla Hansen, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.