Does it matter who we are? Doing disability research in the global south

Fafo has been engaged in disability research in Africa for the past eight years, collaborating with African researchers and Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) from Ghana and Niger. During the AfriNead Conference in South Africa, a key African platform for discussing disability research and policy, several African scholars highlighted the prevailing dominance of Global North researchers, often non-disabled, in disability research on the continent.

This event will present some recent research findings, and the panel will be challenged to explore possible implications of who conducts disability research in Africa, based on experiences from our diverse, multi-country, multidisciplinary team.

Does it matter who performs the research, and if so, how?

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Program:

Refreshments are served between 16:30 and 16:45.

Panel Chair: Tewodros Kebede, Fafo

Presenters:

Greetings from:

Idriis Alzouma Maiga, Nigerien OPD

Sirina Mahamadu, Ghanian OPD

Research results:

Anne Kielland, Fafo: What happens when a Chinese, a Nigerien, a Ghanian, and a Norwegian do qualitative fieldwork together? An anthropologist interviewed all four to identify where perspectives converge and differ.

Huafeng Zhang, Fafo: Quantitative Research on Disability and Schooling in Africa: What did we learn about the variation between disability groups across countries – and within?

Rannveig Sinkaberg, NTNU.  The power of definition and shifting positionality as a deaf researcher in India

Panel discussion