Disability and development : critical (dis)connections

Abstract

The recent World Report on Disability (WRD) (WHO and World Bank (2011) World Report on Disability. Geneva, WHO) estimates that around 15 % of the world’s population are disabled people, that is, close to 1 billion people. Some 80 % of these are located in the Global South, many living in rural areas in conditions of poverty and extreme poverty. International development, though, has been slow to acknowledge the links with disability as a legitimate development issue and concern, and slower to engage with it discursively, theoretically, and in practice. This chapter draws from Critical Disability Studies and Postcolonial perspectives to explore the connections between disability and development. It critically discusses a number of issues in the disability/development nexus and gaps arising when articulating a debate around disability in the Global South in order to raise questions and seeks to generate much needed critical debate in and around ‘disability and development’.