Southern Africa Disability Bibliography on the Net
A bibliography titled "Disability & Social Responses in some Southern African Nations" has been released by CIRRIE, the Centre for International Rehabilitation Research Information & Exchange, at: http://cirrie.buffalo.edu/bibliography/SAfricatoc.html
Over 1400 items are listed and the bibliography is accessible in both html and pdf files. After the Introduction, three country groups appear in separate files: (2) Botswana, Namibia and General items; (3) Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia & Zimbabwe; (4) Angola, Burundi, DR Congo, Mozambique, Rwanda. These countries, with approximately 180 million people in an area a little smaller than the USA, make up most of the region between the equator and the Republic of South Africa.
A fifth section lists around 300 historical items, from the 16th century to 1965, across the broader area of Sub-Saharan Africa (including West African countries and South Africa). The historical materials are accompanied by some annotation.
The compiler/annotator, M. Miles of Birmingham UK, notes that, "Outside the region there has been little awareness of the extent of disability, social responses and service developments, and even less awareness of African cultural resources for accommodating disability, or of the voices of disabled Africans. Very few well-informed overviews have been available internationally - the present bibliography might assist anyone planning to fill that gap." Roughly 70% of the listed material has been formally published in journals or by universities, governments or international bodies. The other 30% consists of unpublished theses or conference papers, some of which may be accessible in microform.
The Introduction cites John Iliffe's prize-winning book, The African Poor. A History, Cambridge UP, 1987 + reprints, which collects trans-African evidence that disabled people were always heavily represented among the chronically poor both before, during and after the colonial period. If the current African Decade of Disabled People (2000-2009) is to influence the continent towards longer-term solutions to the continuing poverty and deprivation, there will need to be some appraisal of the accumulated literature that describes disability through many past decades and centuries of African histories and socio-cultural responses.
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