Competing Commitments: Self-sufficiency and Mutual Obligation among Disabled Communities in Western Uganda

1995年，乌干达通过了一项新宪法，授权议会和地方议会中的残疾人代表由每个社区登记的残疾人选举产生。因此，乌干达有一个不同寻常的制度化的“残疾人权利运动”，有超过4.5万名残疾人议员，理论上，每个村庄都有残疾人组织(DPO)。尽管这一独特的制度广受赞誉，但评价发现，实际惠益有限，这些惠益集中在生活在城市地区的受过高等教育、有轻微残疾的残疾人(即本已富裕的残疾人)。对乌干达残疾运动的现有描述主要集中在政府结构上。然而，自该制度建立以来的几十年里，由于有机会申请针对残疾人小企业的赠款和贷款，DPO也在政府系统之外激增。普通会员与残疾人基础设施的接触，很大程度上是通过这些不那么正式的组织进行的，关于这些组织的研究很少。在我的博士学位中，我对DWG进行了一项人种学研究，这是一个总部设在乌干达市场的残疾妇女组织。在我的论文中，我调查了在这种背景下在非精英残疾人中出现的社会和经济战略。我探索了DPO成员和非成员之间以及生活在不同障碍的人之间在愿望和活动方面的差异。我的调查结果表明，DWG的女性非精英成员从该组织获得了实质性的好处。然而，我也证实了早先关于排斥的报道，补充了使一些残疾人难以与残疾机构接触的机制的细节。我展示了非政府组织和政府是如何专注于向残疾人提供贷款和赠款的小企业，不包括有精神障碍或学习困难的人，以及缺乏沟通支持的聋人。我还描述了DWG如何通过在共同生活的残疾人之间提供相互支持来填补其中的一些空白。作为ESRC的博士后研究员，我将通过学术出版物、以政策为重点的报告和与利益相关者的研讨会分享我的发现，这些研讨会将传播有关现有计划和DWG等残疾社区鲜为人知的活动的意外排斥后果的信息。这些研讨会将使我能够反思这些问题，并讨论解决这些问题的政策变化。我还将在我博士实地调查的基础上，开发一个新的研究项目。通过对一些在2015年为我所在现场附近的一家大公司工作时在一次重大事故中残疾的女性进行采访，我发现那些在工业事故中残疾的人通常不会加入DPO。相反，他们试图通过劳工权利框架获得补偿，尽管这些框架因为公司的外包政策而变得复杂，这项政策被用来避免赔偿的法律责任。残疾理论家普阿和米科沙认为，残疾的社会模式(在乌干达的残疾机构中占主导地位)排除了那些因工业和殖民做法而“致残”的人。因此，在我的实地考察中，残疾是如何被概念化的，与工业事故幸存者选择求助于工会而不是DPO之间似乎存在联系。在ESRC奖学金期间，我将开展一项范围研究，以调查2015年事故中残疾妇女进行实地考察的可行性。这将为我提出一项新的研究建议，探讨残疾概念与劳工权利运动之间的相互作用。

In 1995, Uganda adopted a new Constitution mandating disabled representatives in parliament and local councils, to be elected by registered disabled people in each community. Consequently, Uganda has an unusually institutionalised 'disability rights movement,' with over 45,000 disabled councillors and, theoretically, Disabled People's Organisations (DPOs) in every village. Despite widespread praise for the unique system, evaluations have found limited practical benefits, which were concentrated among highly educated disabled men living in urban areas with minor impairments (i.e., disabled people who were already better off). Existing accounts of the Ugandan disability movement focus mostly on governmental structures. However, in the decades since the system began, DPOs have proliferated outside the government system as well, spurred by opportunities to apply for grants and loans targeted at disabled people's small businesses. Much of ordinary members' engagement with disability infrastructure is through these, less formal, organisations, about which there is little research available.For my PhD, I produced an ethnographic study of DWG, a disabled women's organisation based in a Ugandan market. In my thesis, I investigated the social and economic strategies that emerge among non-elite disabled people in this context. I explored the differences in aspirations and activities between members and non-members of DPOs, and among people living with different impairments. My findings demonstrate that the female non-elite members of DWG derived substantial benefits from the organisation. However, I also confirm earlier reports about exclusion, adding detail about the mechanisms that make it difficult for some disabled people to engage with disability institutions. I show how NGO and government focus on providing loans and grants for disabled people's small businesses excluded people living with mental distress or learning difficulties, as well as deaf people who had inadequate communication support. I also describe how DWG filled some of these gaps through providing mutual support between disabled people living together as a community. This support was crucial to sustaining members' businesses, but was ignored by funders.As an ESRC postdoctoral fellow, I will share my findings through academic publications, policy-focused reports, and workshops with stakeholders, which will circulate information about the unintended exclusionary consequences of existing programmes and the lesser-known activities of disabled communities like DWG. The workshops will enable reflection on the problems and discussion of policy changes to address them.I will also develop a new research project, building on an underdeveloped insight from my PhD fieldwork. Through carrying out interviews with a number of women who had been disabled in a major accident in 2015 while working for a large company near my fieldsite, I discovered that those disabled in industrial accidents did not generally join DPOs. Instead, they attempted to gain redress through labour rights frameworks, even though these were complicated by the company's outsourcing policy, which was used to avoid legal responsibility for compensation.Disability theorists Puar and Meekosha argue the 'social model' of disability (predominant in Uganda's disability institutions) excludes people who are 'made disabled' by industrial and colonial practices. It therefore seems likely that there are connections between how disability is conceptualised in my fieldsite and industrial accident survivors' choice to look to unions instead of DPOs. During the ESRC fellowship, I will carry out a scoping study to investigate the feasibility of fieldwork following the women disabled in the 2015 accident. This will inform my production of a new research proposal, looking at the interaction between concepts of disability and the labour rights movement.