Abstract:
This study explores the societal discourses of disability and its dominant beliefs and practices
in the Basotho society. It challenges a long-standing notion among the Basotho that being
disabled necessarily means being punished for moral failure, sick, vulnerable, in need of
support from non-disabled counterparts. It investigates how dominant discourses of disability
namely the moral, medical, and charity, marginalizes and discriminates on people with
disability. On the contrary, through social construction theory, a narrative theory, twin-track
approach, participatory approach, and mainstreaming approach, the study argues that the
societal discourses about disability are socially constructed through historical and cultural
practices. It is in these practices that disabled people have been and continue to be
marginalized, discriminated, and even excluded from the mainstream society. The study has
adopted qualitative methodology which included data collection through interviews as a
primary data.
The study has challenged this situation by laying bare the societal discourses of disability in
the Basotho society so that they could be seen for what they truly are and how they impact on
the lives of people with disability. The study argued that disability does not mean inability. In
this way, it invited the participants to talk about their experiences when their disability is
made into those discourses and to also voice out what they wish could change and how they
would benefit when they are dismantled. The study also highlighted how people with
disability would benefit when the discourses of disability are challenged and dismantled. It
was seen from people with disability that they do not want to be categorized under the moral,
medical, and charity discourses of disability because that is not who they are. The study
would conclude with highlighting that people with disability could benefit when they are
included in the mainstream society when the discourses of disability are challenged and
dismantled
