ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the everyday experiences of social life of people with disabilities in contemporary rural Cambodia and asks what they tell us about the meaning of inclusion and belonging. Despite the centrality of social inclusion to international disability and development agendas, there has been little critical examination of how social inclusion is conceptualized, achieved and experienced by people with disabilities, particularly in Southern rural contexts. In rural Cambodia inclusion of people with disabilities in social life is typically based upon pity and exceptionalism, and is embedded in hierarchical social relations. The chapter considers a sociospatial theoretical framework to examine the daily lives of people with disabilities and data from ongoing research in rural Cambodia. It reports on preliminary analysis of qualitative data collected in focus group discussions with NGO staff and indepth semi-structured interviews with 68 people with sensory, psychological and physical impairments, and with the parents of young people with intellectual impairments.