Abstract
Chapter 3 looks at the polio-houses from another angle. The polio-houses are not only squats, on the margin between the illegal and informal, they are at the same time respectable civil society organisations, that is, organisations of disabled people (DPOs). As such, they participate with full rights in project society. The association between DPOs and the NGO world seems obvious, but the fact is that voluntary associations have multiple roots in Sierra Leonean history and some of these go well beyond the era of project society. The new organisations could draw on the tradition of early friendly societies and even on the model of secret societies. This chapter gives a detailed account of the emergence and evolution of the polio-DPOs the houses of which we visited in Chap. 2. It will highlight the influence of older day charities, as well as the importance of the ties connecting the DPOs to their rural origins and to a complex international web.
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Notes
- 1.
Being part of the disability movement does not assure full coherence either. The not so long ago established Disability Commission issued a jingle recently to raise awareness about disability, where the word cripul was used to design polio-disabled people, to the great consternation of the polio-DPOs.
- 2.
On the disability movement’s reactions to the National Census, see: https://awoko.org/2017/01/18/sierra-leone-news-as-they-challenge-statistic-2016-final-report-disability-commission-to-start-their-census-february-1st-2017/.
- 3.
Source: UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2004. ‘Disabled in Sierra Leone Prove Disability Is Not Inability.’ FAO Newsroom, December 2004. http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/field/2004/51804/index.html (Accessed: June 2011).
- 4.
I mention this survey several times in Chap. 2.
- 5.
Although census-taking is usually done by self-reporting, using third-person identification has merits, especially when the identity, status or condition being asked about carries social stigma. In a groundbreaking sociological research, Kemény (1976) used this method to identify Roma (Gypsy) persons and families. As they expected few villagers to identify as Roma, the researchers asked villagers to identify which of their neighbours were Roma. The researchers were able to demonstrate that a neighbour’s identification (Roma/non-Roma) mattered more to a person’s overall status and position within the community than his own self-identification. Thus the methodological use of third-person identification draws on interactionalism as it considers identity to be an outcome of social interactions in which stigmatisation is largely determined by those who stigmatise.
- 6.
Goffman defined a ‘total institution’ as a place of residence where a large number of like-situated individuals were cut-off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time and led an enclosed, formally-administered round of life (Asylum 1968:11). Though this description sounds more sympathetic than Foucault’s accounts of prisons and mental institutions, Goffman is nevertheless clear that there is a strict division between those who set the rules and those who must abide by the rules. Thus his version too has a strong disciplinary component.
- 7.
SOS Children Village is part of SOS Children Villages International, a movement initiated by an Austrian philanthropist after the Second World War.
- 8.
The first Cheshire Home was established in London as part of a charity founded by a British military, Leonard Cheshire. Today there are more than 500 Cheshire centres around the world. Cheshire Homes offer residential care for disabled persons. The Cheshire Home in Cline Town was opened in 1962. It offers lodging and schooling for disabled children.
- 9.
Quoted with permission and gratitude from the draft manuscript: Ibrahim Richard Bangura, ‘My Story’.
- 10.
There was always a black market for assistive devices, especially for wheelchairs, as these were not only coveted by disabled people but also by street vendors who used them for transportation. As there were always less wheelchairs than needed and disabled people faced from time to time more imperative needs than free locomotion, many mobility aid devices found their way to the secondary market. That was precisely one of the arguments for the introduction of ‘user fees’, allegedly necessary in order to ‘responsibilise’ users. But more scarcity after the handing-over of the centres to government and the introduction of the ‘user fee’ just blew up the prices on the black market. Rumours had it that wheelchairs and crutches were also sold at the centre at (almost) market prices.
- 11.
The Savings Bank Ordinance made it possible for friendly organisations to open a bank account as early as 1886.
- 12.
‘One word’ is a concept drawn from the decision-making process in secret societies. The concept became a political slogan during the anti-colonial Hut Tax War (Magazinier, 2006) and ever since it is used with predilection in political discourses.
- 13.
Márton Gerő assisted me with the creation of these network maps.
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Szántó, D. (2020). Writing the Play: Creating Disability and DPOs. In: Politicising Polio. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6111-1_3
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