Graduate student Sarah A. Rundall, supervised by Dr. Janet W. McGrath, will undertake research on the interaction between culture, environment, and disability. Research has shown that attitudes toward disability differ cross-culturally and are rooted in cultural and religious ideas. This project will build on that research by focusing on the connections between attitudes towards disability, the natural and built physical environment, practices affecting the disabled, and the experience of disability by the disabled.
This research will take place over twelve months in a Buddhist and Muslim farming community in Ladakh, India. The researcher will use multiple social science methods for data collection: participant observation, focus group and key informant interviewing, and household and individual life histories. Data will be gathered from a sample of Buddhist households and a sample of Muslim households, each with and without disabled residents. The data will be analyzed using quantitative text analysis techniques for analysis of qualitative data.
The goals of the data collection and analysis periods are: 1) to ascertain local definitions of and attitudes toward disability in Ladakh; 2) to explore how norms, values and customs interact with characteristics of the physical environment, both natural and built, to shape experiences of disability; and 3) to examine variations in experiences of disability among individuals, families and the community. Attention will also be paid to other variables, specifically gender, age and socio-economic status, which may influence variations in experiences both within and between the two religious groups.
The research will contribute to social science theory of embodiment, disability and religious studies, and international health policy. It also will contribute to the education of a graduate student.
