A deconstruction of disability discourse amongst Christians in Lesotho

Abstract

The present research study is a deconstructive collaborative project situated within a postmodern paradigm. The research is premised on a notion that disability has been constructed by societies to reflect their values and norms. Despite various ancient and contemporary worldviews stabilising this normative paradigm, disability has remained a shifting and fleeting concept. For the most part, it has cast the disabled identity in more negative and alienating ways than positive. The Christian cultural context of Lesotho within which the study is situated has not done any better in terms of portraying people with disabilities. Instead, it has inherited the legacy of the ancient Mediterranean world and further re-read it in the light of the demands of contemporary society on the disabled identity. For instance, people with disabilities are still constructed as „sinners‟, „monsters‟, „add-ons‟, and pathological burdens who cannot by themselves survive the challenges of the contemporary world. Using the ideas of Foucault and Derrida, the study examines ways in which such a notion of disability is not only linguistically unstable but also founded on the binary opposites. The participatory nature of the study brings the important voices of people with disabilities to further destabilise the notion of disability and to deconstruct the dominant disability story. The immersion of this study within the participatory ethics and consciousness of Kotzé and Heshusius respectively, has led to an ambitious proposing of the participatory model of disability. The latter has leanings towards metaphors of the church as communion founded on and nurtured by the theologies of embrace, interdependence, healing and botho. It also resonates with the metaphor of the church as expounded in I Corinthians 12. As members of the body of Christ, no member can suffer without the rest of the body feeling the same. If one member of the body is disabled all the body is disabled. Alienating and marginalising others has no place in such a metaphor of church as communion, since by its own definition, all belong to and participate within it.