The Power of labeling discourse in the construction of disability in Ghana

In recent times, disability issues have become the major concern for advocacy groups, teachers, school administrators, and policy makers in many countries. There is much work currently being done in many countries in order to find the most appropriate placement for persons with disabilities, particularly in the areas of education, training, and employment. However, there is evidence to suggest that these efforts have been continuously thwarted by the nature and type of labels societies place on individuals with disabilities. These labels vary in nature according to the perceptions, traditions, cultures and beliefs of different societies. This article explores the power of labeling in the Ghanaian society and its effects on the education, treatment and management of persons with disabilities in that country. The paper concludes that unless labeling is removed from the individual and, rather, placed on the problem, our minds will continue to be arrested to see only the negative side of disabled persons, and any consideration for appropriate placement of persons with disabilities is unlikely to work. Introduction With the proclamation and reaffirmation of the right of the disabled child in Salamanca, Spain in 1994, many countries have intensified efforts to find the best educational option and social placement for persons who are labeled as disabled. Despite this dramatic development, and positive achievements by some countries such as United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, in other countries, particularly Ghana in sub-Saharan West Africa, not much has been done in this regard. Research conducted in Ghana points to the fact that this situation is partly due to the labeling discourse that is firmly rooted in the dominant culture of the people (Avoke, 1997, 2001; Oliver-Commey, 2001; Agbenyega, 2002; Ocloo et al., 2002). In this paper, I describe my observations of the general situation of how persons with disabilities are labeled within the Ghanaian tradition and how these labels become powerful tools, or weapons that society and classroom teachers use to suppress and to exclude students with and without disabilities. My observation is supported with evidence in the literature. I argue that if educators focus on the problem that arises daily in the classroom rather than on the individual, this would lead to the creation and use of innovative pedagogies that speak for inclusion. Labels: how powerful are they? I begin with an analogy. In a walk through supermarkets or shops one would identify various products on display by their colourful labels. Manufacturers and sales personnel, from musicians to book writers, just to mention a few, all over the world, use various labels to identify their products. Labels serve as identifiers; they prescribe and attribute particular characteristics to things. Labels speak to us and appeal to senses. Sometimes they encourage us to act irrationally thus diminishing our sense of judgment when we yield to them. They influence our decision-making and limit our whole thinking to the context of the label. Who will choose to buy a tin of milk which is wrongly labeled ‘expired and dangerous to your health? ’ Though the contents are just right but the label misrepresents its true value? I think no one. I argue that because the labels are so powerful, they become the determinant forces that guide our choices as to what to accept and what to reject. We become convinced by labels and settle for them without digging further to unpack the hidden components. In the same way, labels can blindfold us as members of society and educators such that we are unable to see the hidden talents of persons with disabilities. Educators and policy makers sometimes focus only on the negative side of students and justify their actions by the labels they place on them. This suggests something about how strong and influential labels can be. When we are caught within the syndrome of labeling, we are dissuaded from reality and become embedded within the label that begins a process of attaching deviance to an action name or attributes of an individual (Perusin, 1994). Gove (1980) writes, “As with other deviants, it is not so much their actual disability that is the key, but rather society’s reaction to it, the label so attached renders the individual deviant” (p. 234). An individual who is labeled and constructed as disabled suffers the often debilitating consequences of the label (Persaud, 2000). It is clear that though labels on products are tangible things, and those placed on individuals with disabilities are words, they are both forms of language. Language affects the way we think and act (Foreman, 1996). Thus inherent in the language used to label and inscribe, and to construct the disabled in Ghana is premised on the dominant cultural ideology that marginalizes, silences and constructs subjectivities through the society and the school system. With language we often exaggerate the nature of people who differ from us. Foreman (1996) argues that we are so possessed with the labeling syndrome that sometimes we unintentionally use such language to stereotype, construct and classify people as disabled without looking beyond the individual. For instance, the use of labels such as the disabled, the handicapped, epileptics, spastics and the blind are all social constructions which imply that people so classified form an homogenous group. But further examination will reveal that these individuals are different from each other (Foreman, 1996). Gee (1999) stated that it is in the details of the language that social goods are created, sustained, distributed and redistributed. It is in the details of language that people are harmed and helped. Placing disability before the individual is very dehumanizing because the individual is lost. In severe cases we forget to call persons with disabilities by their names; replacing their names with labels. Perusin (1994), drawing on the work of Sacco (1992), specified three powerful dimensions of labeling: ? Patterns of social interaction change when labels are assigned to the individual. Labeling pushes people into the periphery or margins and into the company of others in a similar subculture. The individual who is labeled ‘disabled’ and so classified, gradually conforms to the characteristics of the label, which results in self-fulfilling prophecy (p. 84). These statements indicate that disability discourse has implications for social justice and human rights. In Ghana, these statements depict the real situation in many schools where teaching and learning is associated with labeling (Ocloo et al., 2002). The labeling process starts from the family and penetrates through the school system, and because it is rooted in the traditional beliefs of the people, it is difficult to counter the menace (Oliver-Commey, 2001). Labeling: its processes and the cultural discourse in Ghana Labeling as a method of constructing disability in Ghana emanates from the sociocultural underpinnings of disability. The Ghanaian society is highly traditional with more than two hundred ethnic and tribal groups. The labeling process starts at birth. Pregnancy and birth is highly regarded as a blessing and is characterized with high expectations. There is no reason a family can give to explain why a child is born with a disability except that the anger of the gods has been visited on them (Ocloo et al., 2002). To safeguard against a child being born disabled, pregnant women, particularly in many rural settings in Ghana are subjected to various kinds of taboos. For instance, a pregnant woman is not allowed to eat eggs for the reason that the child might develop into hydrocephalus (big head). Any child born with any defect is seen as a violation of such traditional belief systems and the family will forever suffer from ambivalent reactions (Avoke, 2001). The birth of a disabled child within a family could lead to divorce and family disintegration. In one of the regions (Brong Ahafo), pregnant women are barred from eating fish caught from a river called ‘Nsuakoraa’. The people in this area believe that the river is a god and the fish are its children, and eating fish from this river will result in miscarriages and ‘retarded’ children. People born with disabilities receive labels with various dehumanizing names and their parents become victims of isolation and mockery. With the above notion of cultural ideology, persons with Down’s syndrome in Ghana are believed to be children given by the river gods, and hence they call them ‘Nsuoba’, meaning water children”(Avoke, 1997). In most Ghanaian communities, people believe in reincarnation of human beings and as a result there is a high tendency among people to believe that some families disregard the general principles of nature for which they should be punished by the gods of the land”(Ocloo et al., 2002 p. 17). Disability is also seen in Ghana as a result of witchcraft, sorcery, ‘juju’ and magic (Avoke, 1997, Agbenyega, 2002). Before the era of Christianity and missionary activities, Ghanaians were purely traditionalists, believing in all sorts of inanimate objects. Some Ghanaians believe that people with epilepsy are filled with demons that sometimes torment and throw them on the ground, when they so wish (Agbenyega, 2002). In the Ewe tribe, where I come from, persons with epilepsy are labeled ‘dzeanyikplatowo,’ derogatory tribal language that literally means ‘falling down sicknesses’. No one is allowed to touch or be near them when the convulsion occurs, in the belief that anyone who does so will also be possessed with the demons. Dogbe (1995) indicated that among the Akpafus in the Volta Region of Ghana, the eye disease of cataracts, or ‘kobi’ as it is known in the local language, is believed to be a punishment from the gods for offences the victims or their family members have committed. People in the Northern Region of Ghana, hold a similar view. As a res