Disability, communities of poverty and the global South : debating through social capital

Abstract

This chapter seeks to bridge the gap between disability and development studies by exploring avenues for the application of social capital in elucidating and exploring broader epistemological and practical issues in the debate on disability in the majority world, and through which to explore emerging themes around communities in contexts of poverty. The chapter argues that social capital, despite its neoliberal undertones and opportunistic stance in its adoption by the development sector, provides useful avenues for bringing development and disability closer together, as well as focusing discussion on local contexts, and the role of social relationships and community in the construction of disability, as a source of security, access to resources, and often survival in the absence of formal safety nets. Social capital may also draw attention to and potentially challenge the Western emphasis on self-reliance and independence (individualism), as well as discourse about the presumed (universal) treatment of disabled people across cultures. This opens up the analysis to more micro views of disability within local and social settings and associated factors and processes, notably poverty and its dynamics.