This book is about being disabled and being poor and the social, cultural
and political processes that link these two aspects of living in what has been
characterised as a ‘vicious circle’ (Yeo and Moore, 2003). It is also about the
strengths that people show when living with disability and being poor: how they
try to overcome their problems and make the best out of what little they have. It
is a book about those who we will call ‘the heroes of everyday life’.
The book aims to provide cross-cultural – and cross-national – perspectives
on the situation of living with a disability and being poor. Through this we
hope to illustrate how barriers to participation manifest themselves differently
– and similarly – in different contexts, and how the coping strategies of people
involved (the person with a disability and their family members) emerge in
different settings. We hope to bring forward the necessity of culturally sensitive
approaches to disability studies and rehabilitation, and to counteract some of the
cultural arrogance that Europeans and North Americans tend to bring into this
field, assuming that what seems important or relevant for them is the same all
over the world.