Geodisability knowledge: watching for global north impositions

Geodisability knowledge: watching for global north impositions

Critical disability studies have shown that disability has been geographically and culturally defined and regulated by Western Governments. Thus, disability has history and context(Campbell 2008;Thomson 1997). This paper focuses on the impact these processes may have on people with disability inSri Lanka. An underlying dilemma presented here concerns the relationship between philosophy and action. A critique of the universalist approach to disability governance could occur through a critical appraisal of globalisation. However, some writers would argue that a focus on globalisation is a distraction from a more pressing concern; the continued Eurocentricism of knowledge and the domination of the Global North in social policy, law reform and research (Alatas 2006; Connell 2007). I argue that the United Nations delimits and denotes the kinds of bodies known as ‘disabled’ and this culture of knowledge production controls notions of difference.