Towards mainstreaming disability in Lesotho

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