ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the links between anthropology and disability studies and points to tensions between the past and future directions of the disciplines. Historically, anthropology has been associated with colonialism and the study of the cultural traditions of non-Western people. Yet, in recent years, inspired by feminism, post-colonialism, and post-modernism, the anthropological field of study has expanded. According to the definition of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), Sociocultural anthropologists examine patterns and processes of cultural change, with a special interest in how people live in particular places, how they organize, govern, and create meaning. Socio-cultural research is crucial when concepts such as disability are developed within particular minority world settings. Development discourses are framed within neoliberal minority world settings. From the nineteenth century onwards, with emergence of medical technology in a minority worldview, right up until the present, the most dominant model of understanding disability was an individual medical model.
