Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-09T08:52:16.415Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sticks and wheelchairs for elderly people in central Uganda: values of utility, provenance and presentation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2022

Rehema Namaganda ,
David Kyaddondo ,
Isaac Kajja  and
Steven Kiwuwa
Rehema Namaganda*
Affiliation:
College of Health Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
David Kyaddondo
Affiliation:
College of Health Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
Isaac Kajja
Affiliation:
College of Health Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
Steven Kiwuwa
Affiliation:
College of Health Sciences, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
*
Email: rebav@hotmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While mobility-assistive devices ease movement and independence of persons with disabilities, their use may depend on their social and symbolic meaning. This article departs from our observation that elderly people in Wakiso in Uganda own a variety of assistive technologies yet do not utilize them all equally. Our findings are based on data collected through conversations, interviews and observations of thirty elderly people visited in their homes between July 2016 and January 2017. We found that elderly people with mobility disabilities valued devices for the greater autonomy they afforded, although dependence was also valued in some situations. The source or provenance of a device imbued it with meaning. Holding onto it regardless of how much one used it was in a way like holding onto the social relationship that the artefact represented, and the same can be said of abandoning it. Devices were also valued according to the manner in which they portrayed the user to the rest of the world – either positively as cosmopolitan and cared for, or negatively as sickly.

Résumé

Résumé

Les dispositifs d’aide à la mobilité facilitent le mouvement et l’indépendance des personnes en situation de handicap, mais leur utilisation peut dépendre de leur signification sociale et symbolique. Cet article part de l’observation que les personnes âgées de Wakiso en Ouganda possèdent diverses technologies d’aide, mais qu’elles ne les utilisent pas toutes de manière égale. Les conclusions de cette étude sont basées sur des données recueillies à travers des conversations, des entretiens et des observations de trente personnes âgées rencontrées chez elles entre juillet 2016 et janvier 2017. Les auteurs ont constaté que les personnes âgées à mobilité réduite appréciaient les dispositifs d’aide pour les gains d’autonomie qu’ils procurent, tout en valorisant également la dépendance dans certaines situations. La source ou la provenance du dispositif l’imprégnait de signification. L’attachement au dispositif d’aide, si peu utilisé fut-il, était d’une certaine manière comparable à l’attachement à la relation sociale que l’objet représentait, et il en va de même pour son abandon. L’appréciation des dispositifs variait également selon l’impression qu’ils donnaient de l’utilisateur au reste du monde, à savoir positive de personne cosmopolite dont on prend soin, ou négative de personne maladive.

Type
Disability and technology
Information
Africa , Volume 92 , Issue 4 , August 2022 , pp. 484 - 500
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akullo, N. W. (2017) ‘Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment (SAGE) programme in Uganda’, Socialprotection.org [blog], 10 February <https://socialprotection.org/discover/blog/social-assistance-grants-empowerment-sage-programme-uganda>, accessed 30 March 2021.,+accessed+30+March+2021.>Google Scholar
Ankrah, E. M. (1993) ‘The impact of HIV/AIDS on the family and other significant relationships: the African clan revisited’, AIDS Care 5 (1): 5–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bavuma, N. R., Kyaddondo, D., Kiwuwa, S. and Kajja, I. (2017) ‘“I am not that sick”: the use of assistive mobility technologies among the elderly’, Journal of Aging Research and Healthcare 2 (2): 23–30.Google Scholar
Beckmann, G. (2022) ‘Sign language as a technology: existential and instrumental perspectives of Ugandan Sign Language’, Africa 92 (4): 430–48.Google Scholar
Biniok, P. and Menke, I. (2015) ‘Societal participation of the elderly: information and communication technologies as a “social junction”’, Anthropology and Aging 36 (2): 164–81.Google Scholar
Buch, E. D. (2017) ‘Beyond independence: older Chicagoans living valued lives’ in Lamb, S. (ed.), Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession: global perspectives. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Byiers, B. et al. (2015) Work in Progress: productive employment and transformation in Uganda. London: Overseas Development Institute. Available at <http://ecdpm.org/wp-content/uploads/Work-Progress-ODI-ECDPM-March-2015.pdf>, accessed 5 October 2021.Google Scholar
De Silva, V. (2022) ‘“Its name is Awetasc”: devices and everyday life of people with physical disability in Ethiopia’, Africa 92 (4): 522–39.Google Scholar
Devlieger, C. (2022) ‘“Losing complexes”: navigating technology, moral careers, and mobility among disabled people in Kinshasa’, Africa 92 (4): 501–21.Google Scholar
Ingstad, B., Brunborg, H. and Bruun, F. J. (1996) ‘Elderly people at village level in Botswana’, Finnish Yearbook of Population Research 33: 243–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamaraj, D., Bray, N., Pearlman, J., Rispin, K. R., Borg, J. and Kankipati, P. (2017) ‘A conceptual framework to assess effectiveness in wheelchair provision’, African Journal of Disability 6 (1): 1–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kasente, D., Asingwire, N., Banugire, F. and Kyomuhendo, S. (2002) ‘Social security systems in Uganda’, Journal of Social Development in Africa 17 (2): 159–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamb, S. (2013) ‘Personhood, appropriate dependence, and the rise of eldercare institutions in India’ in Lynch, C. and Danely, J. (eds), Transitions and Transformations: cultural perspectives on aging and the life course. New York NY: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Langwick, S., Dilger, J. and Kane, A. (2012) ‘Introduction: transnational medicine, mobile experts’ in Dilger, H., Kane, A. and Langwick, S. (eds), Medicine, Mobility and Power in Global Africa: transnational health and healing. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Livingston, J. (2005) Debility and the Moral Imagination in Botswana. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Lupton, D. and Seymour, W. (2000) ‘Technology, selfhood and physical disability’, Social Science and Medicine 50: 1851–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mauss, M. (1990) The Gift: the form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. Translated by Halls, W. D.. New York, NY and London: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Miller, D. and Parrott, F. (2009) ‘Loss and material culture in South London’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15 (3): 502–19.Google Scholar
Miskelly, F. G. (2001) ‘Assistive technology in elderly care’, Age and Aging 30: 455–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Obrist, B. (2016) ‘Place matters: the home as a key site of old-age care in coastal Tanzania’ in Hoffman, J. and Pype, K. (eds), Ageing in Sub-Saharan Africa: spaces and practices of care. Bristol: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Øderud, T. et al. (2004) Feasibility Study on Production and Provision of Wheelchairs and Tricycles in Uganda. Trondheim: SINTEF Health Research.Google Scholar
Pype, K. (2016) ‘Brokers of belonging: elders and intermediaries in Kinshasa’s mobile phone culture’ in Willems, W. and Mano, W. (eds), Everyday Media Culture in Africa: audiences and users. New York NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pype, K. (2018) ‘Dead media objects and the experience of the (once) modern: ethnographic perspectives from the living rooms of Kinshasa’s old aged’, Ethnos 83 (2): 218–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rekdal, O. B. (1999) ‘Cross-cultural healing in East African ethnography’, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 14 (4): 458–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scherz, C. (2017) ‘Seeking the wounds of the gift: recipient agency in Catholic charity and Kiganda patronage’ in Klaits, F. (ed.), The Request and the Gift in Religious and Humanitarian Endeavors. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
UBOS (2014) Uganda National Household Survey 2012/2013. Kampala: Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS). Available at <https://catalog.ihsn.org/catalog/4620/related-materials>, accessed 5 October 2021.,+accessed+5+October+2021.>Google Scholar
UBOS (2017a) The National Population and Housing Census 2014. Kampala: Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS). Available at <https://www.ubos.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/03_20182014_National_Census_Main_Report.pdf>, accessed 5 October 2021.,+accessed+5+October+2021.>Google Scholar
UBOS (2017b) National Population and Housing Census 2014 Area Specific Profile, Wakiso District. Kampala: Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS). Available at <https://www.ubos.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/2014CensusProfiles/WAKISO.pdf>, accessed 5 October 2021.,+accessed+5+October+2021.>Google Scholar
Van der Geest, S. (2002a) ‘The toilet: dignity, privacy and care of elderly people in Kwahu, Ghana’ in Makoni, S. and Stroeken, K. (eds), Ageing in Africa: sociolinguistic and anthropological approaches. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Van der Geest, S. (2002b) ‘Respect and reciprocity: care of elderly people in rural Ghana’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 17 (1): 3–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van Eeuwijk, P. (2016) ‘Older people providing care for older people in Tanzania: against conventions – but accepted’ in Hoffman, J. and Pype, K. (eds), Ageing in Sub-Saharan Africa: spaces and practices of care. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Weiner, A. B. (1992) Inalienable Possessions: the paradox of keeping while giving. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Whyte, S. R. (2017) ‘Epilogue: successful aging and desired interdependence’ in Lamb, S. (ed.), Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession: global perspectives. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Whyte, S. R. (2020) ‘In the long run: Ugandans living with disability’, Current Anthropology 61 (S21): S132–S140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whyte, S. R. and Whyte, M. (2004) ‘Children’s children: time and relatedness in eastern Uganda’, Africa 74 (1): 76–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zoanni, T. (2019) ‘Appearances of disability and Christianity in Uganda’, Cultural Anthropology 34 (3): 444–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar