Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal
Global South and Disability - Plain Language Abstracts1
Vol. 19 Issue 3 & 4 (2024): Special Issue: Conversations With/Across The Global South: Towards Decolonial Disability Futurities
Editorial
Xuan Thuy Nguyen, Shilpaa Anand, Alexis Padilla
This editorial provides an invitation from the guest editors to read the RDS Special Issue: Conversations With/Across the Global South: Towards Decolonial Disability Futurities while outlining its purpose and contents.
Research Articles and Essays
Beautiful Debilitation: War Injuries as Political Currency in Vietnam and U.S. Relations
Ai Binh T. Ho
War injuries have become a way for the United States and Vietnam to talk to each other about the past. The US looks at famous photos from the Vietnam War, like the one of a girl named Phan Thi Kim Phuc who was hurt by a flame bomb. They see these injuries as both sad and meaningful. Vietnam uses these same powerful images to help make friends with other countries and get help after the war, since they can't get direct payments for the damage caused.
Disrupting Fixity: Palestine as Central to Decolonial Disability Justice
Laura J. Jaffee and Lara Sheehi
This conversation is about making sure everyone's voice is heard, especially when we're learning about the world. The speakers want to show why helping Palestine is important for creating a better future for people with disabilities. They talk about how some people treat those with disabilities unfairly, including people with mental health issues. They also discuss how some groups pretend to care about helping people with disabilities when they really don't. The speakers look at how the way powerful countries have taken over other countries in the past still causes problems today. They imagine what the world could be like if we fixed these problems and made things fairer for everyone.
Decolonial Disability Futurities From the Global South: Radical Relational Lessons From Glissant
Alexis Padilla
This essay looks at how we can imagine a better future for people with disabilities, especially in countries that were once controlled by other nations. It uses ideas from a writer named Glissant about how cultures mix and how it's okay not to fully understand others. The author wants to connect ideas from poorer countries with those from richer countries. They think it's important for different groups of people who face unfair treatment to work together. This includes people with disabilities, people of different races, genders, social classes, and other groups who often don't have as much power in society. The essay talks about how these different groups can team up to create fairer ways of thinking, living, and making decisions that help everyone.
Transnational Global South Informed DisCrit in Teacher Preparation: Boundary-Crossing Between Disability Studies and Communication Sciences
Shehreen Iqtadar and David Hernández-Saca
This paper looks at a way to teach future teachers about including all students in their classrooms. The authors call this idea "GSI-DisCrit." It combines thoughts about disabilities and race from countries that aren't as rich or powerful. The authors study their own teaching methods to show how colleges can better prepare new teachers. They suggest that different subjects should work together and share ideas. This can help future teachers learn how to make their classrooms welcoming for all students, including those with disabilities or from different backgrounds. By teaching this way, the authors hope to make schools fairer and more open to everyone.
Organizing the Youth Leadership Circle: Lessons Learned Across Southern Spaces
Xuan Thuy Nguyen, Thi Xuan Nhi Truong, and Dana Corfield
Young women and girls face significant barriers due to male-dominated societies and the lingering effects of colonialism. Although these young women are actively working to advocate for their rights and engage in feminist movements, there has been limited research on their participation, especially in the global South. The ENGAGE project aims to address this gap by exploring how young women and girls with disabilities in Vietnam, India, and South Africa engage in leadership and knowledge-sharing within their communities. The project also seeks to shift the conversation from typical development issues to a focus on the impacts of colonialism and unequal power relations.
Reading Mohini Mohun Majumder’s Muk-Shiksha: Special Education in Colonial India
Tirtha Pratim Deb
This paper looks at a 1903 text called Muk-Shiksha and makes three main points. First, it explores how people with disabilities in colonized areas were connected to the ruling countries and how ideas moved between them. Second, it discusses how the idea of teaching speech to deaf people (called oralism) spread in these colonized areas. Lastly, it talks about how ideas about special education were shared through local newspapers and books written in the local languages.
Categorizing Disability: Perspectives from West Bengal, India
Nandini Ghosh and Suchandra Bhaduri
This paper looks at how people thought about disability before and after powerful countries took control of other lands (which is called colonization). It explores: how people understood disability before colonization happened; how ideas about disability changed when colonization occurred; and how these ideas continued to change after colonization ended. The paper shows that the way we talk about disability reflects how society feels about people with disabilities. Different communities use and sometimes change these ideas to fit their own views. By looking at this history, we can understand why we think about disability the way we do today.
Additional Global Research
Pedagogical Strategies for Inclusive Educators: Rethinking Autistic Students’ Behavior Through a Motor Planning and Sensory Regulation Differences Lens
Sara Scribner and Chelsea P. Tracy-Bronson
Researchers have found that autistic students often experience the world differently through their senses and may have trouble planning their movements. However, schools usually try to help these students by focusing on their behavior instead. This article looks at this problem from a new angle that respects and values people with disabilities. The researchers talked to autistic people to understand how their sensory and movement needs are often mistaken for behavior problems. They share stories from autistic people to show why we need to think about autism differently. Then, they give ideas for how teachers — both new and experienced — can teach in ways that better support autistic students' sensory and movement needs. This research aims to help schools understand autism better and find better ways to support autistic students, rather than just trying to change their behavior.
The Right to Love and Be Loved: Sexual Health Education for Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
Anne Stair and Andrew Roach
Schools have gotten better at including students with learning and developmental disabilities in regular classes. However, these students often don't get a good education about sex and health. This paper looks at why this problem started in the past, how schools teach sex and health to these students now, and how this affects the students' lives. The paper tries to help people understand why it's important for all students, including those with disabilities, to learn about sex and health in school.
In the Forefront: Public Housing Residents’ Needs for Persons with Disabilities
G. Lawrence Farmer, Henry J. Davis, Janna C. Heyman, Susan Matloff-Nieves, Peggy L. Kelly, Smita Dewan, Nancy Wackstein, Dalys Castro
People living in public housing often struggle to get the help they need, especially if they have disabilities. This study asked residents what they thought was important. For people with disabilities, the top priorities were community projects, programs for different age groups, and better health services. These results can help improve public housing in the future. Not much research has been done on this topic before, so this study helps us understand what people in public housing really need.
Love’s in Sight: Japan’s Graphic Narrative of Blindness
Yoshiko Okuyama and Osamu Kurikawa
Two researchers looked at a Japanese comic book called Love's in Sight about a blind girl. One researcher studies comics and disability and can see; the other researcher studies disability and is blind. They used an audio format called Voice Comics, which allows blind people to listen to a narration and understand the comics. The researchers wanted to see if this comic could help people learn more about disabilities. They also wanted to know if it could help people change their thinking about those with disabilities as being different.
Impairing the Vote: The Effect of State Election Policy on Disabled Voter Turnout
April A. Johnson and Wyatt Dunlap
In the past, researchers didn't fully understand how people with disabilities vote in elections. This study looks at how different state voting rules affect whether people with disabilities actually vote or not. We found that single voting rules by themselves don't really change how many people with disabilities vote. Voting is more complicated for people with disabilities than we used to think. Our research helps us understand this better.
Bridging the Communication Chasm Between Deaf Patients and Masked Medical Professionals
Renuka Sundaram
When COVID-19 hit in 2020, it made talking to doctors and nurses much harder for people who are deaf or have trouble hearing. This is because everyone had to wear masks. Masks cover people's mouths, so deaf people couldn't read lips anymore. They also hide facial expressions, which are really important for understanding what someone means. This made it tough for deaf patients to communicate in hospitals and doctor's offices and get the medical care they needed. This article talks about these problems and also looks at new and creative solutions to help deaf patients and their doctors understand each other better.
U.S. Postsecondary Students with Disabilities: Where Do They Enroll and Document Their Disability
W. Taylor and Ibrahim Bicak
No one has done a big study to find out what kinds of colleges have the most students with disabilities over a long time. Our study looked at five years of information that colleges shared about students with disabilities. We found out that city colleges, public colleges (not private ones), and colleges that offer four-year degrees have more students with disabilities than other types of colleges. We also learned that more and more students with disabilities have been going to college since 2013. This information can help colleges and researchers understand how to better support students with disabilities.
Authentic Voices in the Discussion of Disability in Kenya
Elisheba Kiru
This article talks about a book called Disability and social justice in Kenya: Scholars, policymakers, and activists in conversation. The book helps readers understand what life is like for people with disabilities in Kenya, both in the past and now. It also offers ideas on how to make things better in the future.
Dissertations & Abstracts v19i3-4
Sandra S. Oshiro
These are recent dissertations and theses related to disability studies.
___________________________________________
1Abstracts produced with assistance of Claude AI.