The following full text, open online annotated bibliography is now online, after several years in compilation.
DISABILITY IN AFRICA: RELIGIOUS, ETHICAL & HEALING RESPONSES, to and by People with Disabilities, Deafness, or Mental Debility: a bibliography through four millennia, with introduction and partial annotation.
M. Miles, with C. Miles, West Midlands, UK
www.independentliving.org/docs7/mmiles-disability-africa-bibliography-2018.html
ABSTRACT
This work introduces and partly annotates more than 1200 items indicating religious, ethical, healing and spiritual responses toward or by people with disabilities, deafness, or mental disorder or debility. Materials are found in the social, legal, medical, educational, literary, ethical, psychological, religious and anthropological histories, cultural heritage and current lives and practices in most countries of Africa, from antiquity to the 2010s. They are mainly in English (80%), with French (15%), some Arabic, German, and Dutch (with Afrikaans and Flemish), and a sprinkling of Ashanti, Coptic, Greek, Hausa, Latin, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Setswana, Spanish, Swahili, Xhosa, Yoruba, Zulu... The Introduction shows that this is more than a dry record of textual materials. Responses have been made to and by disabled and vulnerable people, in both traditional and modern ways, across the vast wealth of African history and culture. Among the authors, more than a hundred voices of disabled people are identified and heard.
--- Here is a tool with which to map and grasp the dimensions and diversity. The richness of compassionate and innovative human behaviour in many of the world’s economically weaker countries can become a surrogate indicator of global progress toward peace-building and more humane resource distribution. This should be shared with the rest of humanity in the 21st century. Massive problems confront us all: war, injustice, disinformation and political turbulence, resettlement of refugees, battles for water and resources amidst climate change and resurgence of disease. These threats and disasters are unlikely to be solved unless there is an increase in wisdom and mutual respect among all the major civilisations. It requires a recognition that the poorest and apparently weakest nations and peoples have valuable, documented experience, and may offer wisdom, to contribute toward peace-building and the common good.
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[NB do not try to use m99miles address – Microsoft dismantled it some time back..]
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