Doctoral Dissertation Research: Disability and Participatory Development: Ethnographic Study of Self-help Groups in Rural South India

这项定性的民族志研究旨在了解新自由主义发展实践对发展中国家残疾人的影响，特别提到了印度。本研究位于印度南部安得拉邦（Andhra Pradesh）的农村地区，批判性地考察了一个广泛实施的参与式发展项目，该项目寻求通过自助团体（shg）为残疾人赋权，并获得世界银行的结构调整贷款。它探讨了SHGs如何促进残疾人生活中的个人和集体变化，以及这些群体如何受到该地区更大的政治、法律、经济和社会残疾和发展背景的影响。本研究整合了跨学科的知识体系，以及位于地方和全球层面的多个利益相关者的观点，对自助团体模式进行了深入的批判性分析，该模式目前被认为是赋权残疾人的最佳实践，不仅在印度，而且在整个发展中国家都是如此。这项研究旨在研究结构性问题和自助团体在当地的实践，以及它们如何塑造残疾人的生活。通过参与观察、小组讨论和访谈，该项目从多个利益相关者的角度分析了参与式发展对残疾人的赋权程度。残疾人、他们的家人和社区成员，以及政府和非政府组织的工作人员。与当代民族志的趋势一致，本研究从当地和全球的角度分析残疾和发展，以期推进残疾人和其他少数群体的社会政策和计划。重要的是，研究人员？个人残疾经历？一个来自印度的视障人士？鉴于残疾问题主要是由发展中国家的非残疾学者研究的，因此以局内人的视角告知并丰富了该项目。由于印度和其他发展中国家的农村残疾问题在学术界、政策和实践中受到的关注最少，本研究的结果将做出重大贡献。在这里产生的知识提供了对发展中国家残疾人面临的挑战的见解，以及自助模式的优势和局限性，这种模式正在国际上被用于增强残疾人和其他少数群体的能力。更广泛地说，这项研究对社会科学研究具有重要意义，因为它将增加对新自由主义对多样性、治理、人的影响的理解。美国集体主义和发展战略。残疾挑战了正常的基本概念，因此，这项研究有助于扩大围绕包容、多样性、参与和社会正义的辩论。在实践层面，这项研究将特别有助于在对权利和更充分的公民意识敏感的社会正义框架内设计赋予残疾人权力和包容残疾人的方案和政策。它向学术界、活动家、实践者和政策制定者介绍了参与可以重新政治化的新方法，以实现变革目的，以及发展如何公平地惠及残疾人和其他少数群体。

This qualitative ethnographic research seeks to understand the impact of neoliberal development practices on people with disabilities in developing countries, with special reference to India. Located in rural areas of Andhra Pradesh (a state in south India), this research critically examines a widely practiced participatory development project that seeks to empower disabled people through self-help groups (SHGs), with a structural adjustment loan from the World Bank. It explores how SHGs facilitate individual and collective change in the lives of disabled people, and how these groups might be affected by the larger political, legal, economic, and social context of disability and development in the region. Integrating interdisciplinary body of knowledge, and perspectives of multiple stakeholders, located across local and global levels, this research provides an in-depth critical analysis of the self-help group model, which is currently perceived and implemented as a best practice of empowering disabled people not only in India, but also across the developing world. This research is designed both to look at structural issues and locally situated practices of self-help groups and how they shape the lives of disabled people. Through participant observation, group discussions, and interviews, the project analyzes how empowering is participatory development for disabled people with a multiple stake-holder perspectives ? that of disabled people, their family and community members, and staff of governmental and nongovernmental organizations. In line with contemporary trends in ethnography, this enquiry analyzes disability and development from local and global vantage points, with a view to advancing social policies and programs for disabled people and other minority groups. Importantly, the researcher?s personal disability experience?a person with visual disability from India?informs and enriches the project with an emic (insider?) perspective, given that disability has primarily been studied by nondisabled scholars in developing countries. Since rural disability in India and other developing countries has received least attention from academia, policy and practice, findings from this research will make significant contributions. The knowledge generated here offers insights on challenges faced by disabled people in developing countries, as well as the strengths and limitations of the self-help model per say, which is being employed internationally to empower disabled people and other minority communities alike. More generally, this research carries significant implications for social science scholarship in that it will increase understanding of the effects of neoliberalism on diversity, governance, people?s collectives and development strategies. Disability challenges fundamental notions of normalcy, and, thus, the research contributes to widening the debates around inclusion, diversity, participation and social justice. At a practical level, this research will particularly help in designing programs and policies for the empowerment and inclusion of disabled people within a social justice framework sensitive to rights and fuller sense of citizenship. It informs academia, activists, practitioners and policymakers about new ways in which participation can be re-politicized for transformational ends, and how development can equitably benefit disabled and other minority groups.