An African ethics of social wellbeing: Understanding Disability and Public Health

Abstract

In this chapter, I argue that we need to reconceptualise how we think of ethics in public health to address disability in Africa. I begin by investigating what an African morality and ethics would look like, why it is linked to conceptions of personhood and kinship, and how that links into the multiple local and global understandings of disability. Secondly, I note how African ontologies and epistemologies have been linked to ‘cultural’ or ‘traditional’ understandings of disability and nuance those arguments in terms of understanding ‘’the good’ or social wellbeing. Thirdly, I argue that neither ethics nor disability have been integrated into public health approaches in many African contexts. Lastly, I note some of the future challenges that the continent will face and why reconceptualising ethics, disability and public health should be a priority.