Constructing ‘disability’ in Myanmar: teachers, community stakeholders, and the complexity of disability models

Abstract

This article explores Myanmar teachers’ and community stakeholders’ constructions of disability. We examine how various religious perspectives – particularly Buddhism – inform and shape understandings of impairment and how these beliefs intersect with a strongly medicalised construction of disability. However, in our discussion and exploration of the responses, we also found that the notion of two primary disability ‘models’ – namely the medical model and the social model – lack nuance, complexity, and socio-cultural consideration. Through examining teachers’ and community members’ perspectives of disability in Myanmar, we highlight the importance of socio-cultural variance in understanding local constructions of disability.

Keywords:

• Myanmar
• disability
• teachers
• medical model
• Buddhism
• Global South

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In this article we use the term Myanmar to refer to the nationality of the participants in the study. Through this, we want to acknowledge the ethnic heterogeneity of the participants coming from groups such as Mon and Kayin as well as Barmar. Whilst the majority of the research was undertaken in English, we use the term Myanmar in relation to the language spoken within this study. In translating the Myanmar language, we use phonetic translation. There is not a fully standardised way of writing Myanmar script phonetically and so one of the participants checked our English phonetic translation.

2 The teacher explained that during her secondary education (at government school) she had been set a comprehension task in English class about Helen Keller. Helen Keller was also mentioned by other teachers as an example that persons with disabilities could be successful; they also cited their knowledge of her from English comprehension at secondary school.