Provincializing bodyminds, decolonizing disability

Giorgio Brocco, Laura A. Meek and Jane L. Saffitz

Social Science & Medicine, 2025, vol. 376, issue C

Abstract: In critical disability studies and crip theory, a key intervention has been to challenge Cartesian dualism by using terms such as bodyminds, body-minds, mind/bodies, and other hybrids. While the concept of "bodyminds" integrates physical and cognitive experiences and challenges dualistic thinking, it has been criticized by scholars for prioritizing Eurocentric notions of the mind and subjectivity over other understandings of bodily normality and difference. Drawing on ten years of ethnographic research in Tanzania, this article argues that the concept of "bodyminds" remains rooted in a Eurocentric framework that overlooks the relational and communal understandings of disability prevalent in Tanzania. We build on Sylvia Wynter's critique of “the figure of Man” to show how dominant disability discourses and practices often overemphasize secular and biological definitions of disability, marginalizing alternative ways of being human. Our ethnographic research highlights the diverse and relational experiences of disability among our Tanzanian interlocutors by thinking with Swahili concepts like mitandao ya jamii” (social relationships), utofauti (difference), and kawaida (normality). We conclude by urging scholars to expand frameworks of bodily non-normativity beyond Eurocentric models and toward a more inclusive comprehension of ideas and experiences of normality and difference globally.

Keywords: Africa; Tanzania; Disability; Relationality; Epilepsy; Albinism; Ethnography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953625003788
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:376:y:2025:i:c:s0277953625003788

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118048

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().