War and Embodied Memory: Becoming Disabled in Sierra Leone

Description

How do you become an 'amputee', 'war-wounded', 'victim' or 'disabled' person? This book describes how an amputee and war-wounded community was created after a decade long conflict (1991-2002) in Sierra Leone. Beginning with a general socio-cultural and historical analysis of what is understood by impairment and disability, it also explains how disability was politically created both during the conflict and post-conflict, as violence became part of the everyday. Despite participating in the neoliberal rebuilding of the nation state, ex-combatants and the security of the nation were the government’s main priorities, not amputee and war-wounded people. In order to survive, people had to form partnerships with NGOs and participate in new discourses and practices around disability and rights, thus accessing identities of 'disabled' or 'persons with disabilities'. NGOs, charities and religious organisations that understood impairment and disability were most successful at aiding this community of people. However, since discourse and practice on disability were mainly bureaucratic, top-down, and not democratic about mainstreaming disability, neoliberal organisations and INGOs have caused a new colonisation of consciousness, and amputee and war-wounded people have had to become skilled in negotiating these new forms of subjectivities to survive. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 List of Figures......Page 8 List of Abbreviations......Page 10 Terminology......Page 14 Acknowledgements......Page 16 Part I......Page 18 1 Setting the Scene: Locating Disability in Sierra Leone......Page 20 2 Intersections between Anthropology, Disability, Development and Conflict......Page 40 3 A General and Socio-Historical Analysis of Impairment and Disability......Page 64 4 The Political Background of the Creation of Disability......Page 80 Part II......Page 102 5 Rebuilding and Rehabilitating the Nation State: Creating National Memory and Disabled Subjectivity?......Page 104 6 Rebuilding the Social World......Page 128 7 Managing Life as an Individual?......Page 154 8 Disability Mainstreaming and Social Activism......Page 176 9 Reparations, Reintegration and Peace......Page 194 10 Looking to the Future......Page 208 Appendix......Page 218 Bibliography......Page 226 Index......Page 270