Religion, Culture, and Disability in Namibia: Documenting Lived Experience of Stigma and Compulsory Cure

Abstract

This article seeks to highlight voices of experience of disability in Namibia, focusing on the religious and cultural perspectives and realities that often negatively influence such experiences, including experiences of stigma and compulsory cure. We present the results of three workshops that were held with persons with disabilities, organizations of persons with disabilities, clergy, and seminarians (variously, also attended by academics and representatives from UN agencies and the Government of the Republic of Namibia). The findings of the workshops—including the socio-economic, political, and public health dimensions of marginalization—are then situated within the current research landscape on disability in Namibia (and wider Southern Africa). Whilst recognizing that religious and cultural attitudes so often contribute to disability marginalization, we also propose that religious and cultural resources can usefully be harnessed to tackle stigma and discrimination. Here, we focus on the Contextual Bible Study methodology, which originates in South Africa, and its potential to promote equality, diversity, and inclusion for persons with disabilities and effect positive social change. Finally, and as this article has emerged from an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars (in Namibia, South Africa, and the UK), some reflections are offered about the collaboration between the theories, epistemologies, and methods of the Global North and Global South regarding religion, culture, and disability.

Keywords:

• African Traditional Religion
• Christianity
• Contextual Bible Study
• Disability
• Namibia

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval was granted for this study by the College of Humanities Ethics Committee at the University of Exeter. All participants gave informed consent verbally at the workshops attended. Their comments have been anonymised in this article.

Notes

1 This is a genuinely co-authored article and does not have a “lead author”. We have therefore chosen to list the authors in alphabetical order.

2 Over the three workshops, representatives attended from the following OPDs and umbrella organizations for OPDs: the National Federation of People with Disabilities in Namibia, the Namibia Albino Association, the Namibian Organization for Youth with Disabilities, the Namibian Federation of the Visually Impaired, the Namibian Association of Wheelchair Users, and the National Association of Persons with Physical Disabilities. Full summaries of the discussions are available online at: https://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/disabilitynamibia/.

3 See, for example, an article in The Namibian newspaper by Martha Mukaiwa (2018) about disabled artist, Tweyapewa Mbandeka: “working on an image of an African map with a person holding his hands in a symbol of peace, the artist wants to motivate Africans to live in harmony. ‘Especially nowadays our own people seem to be turning against each other. From different tribes to GBV. You also see people turning on people from different countries, so my work is about peace’. Happy to be a featured Heritage Week artist because it is an opportunity for visitors to see what he is capable of while he advertises both himself and the gallery, Mbandeka is an artist often underestimated but always a standout when considered in artistic groups.”

4 The fact that this project was being undertaken during the Coronavirus pandemic meant that a more widespread trial with grassroots communities—the route we had planned—was not felt to be appropriate.

Additional information

Funding

This article was funded by a Networking Grant from the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council under Grant AH/T008407/1.