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‘Its name is Awetasc’: devices and the everyday life of people with physical disability in Ethiopia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2022

Virginia De Silva
Virginia De Silva*
Affiliation:
University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy
*
Email: virginiadesilva83@gmail.com
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Abstract

This article aims to shed light on the institutions involved in spreading a ‘culture of rehabilitation’ and distributing devices (crutches, wheelchairs and protheses) in Tigray, where rehabilitation is strictly bound to the development agenda and to the ‘modernization’ of the country. Moreover, it questions the ways in which people, in practice, deal with such devices: in some cases, they are perceived as useful; in others, they are considered as something requiring a hard process of adjustment and marking a bodily difference. How is the ‘deviced’ body experienced? Are there some ‘techniques of the body’ that resist the biopolitical devices imposed by the culture of rehabilitation? I answer these questions through evidence collected during ethnographic fieldwork carried out between October 2014 and August 2015 in the regional state of Tigray, Ethiopia.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet essai vise à analyser les institutions impliquées dans la diffusion d’une ‘culture de la réadaptation’ et dans la distribution d’appareils (béquilles, fauteuils roulants et prothèses) au Tigray, où la réadaptation est strictement liée au programme de développement et à la modernisation du pays. De plus, ce texte interroge la manière dont les gens gèrent ces appareils dans la pratique. Dans certains cas ils sont perçus comme des aides utiles, dans d’autres ils sont considérés comme nécessitant un ajustement difficile et qui mettent en évidence une différence physique. Comment est-ce que le corps ‘appareillé’ est-il expérimenté ? Y a-t-il des ‘techniques du corps’ qui résistent au dispositif biopolitique imposé par la culture de la réadaptation? J’essaye de répondre à ces questions à travers les données recueillies lors d’un travail de terrain ethnographique mené entre Octobre 2014 et Août 2015 dans l’État régional du Tigray, en Éthiopie.

Type
Disability and technology
Information
Africa , Volume 92 , Issue 4 , August 2022 , pp. 522 - 539
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute

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