African Journal of Disability 2025 Special Collection: We invite you to submit

AOSIS calls on all authors to participate in the African Journal of Disability 2025 special collection that will be published in the open-access scholarly journal. Submit your latest research for consideration, contribute to the open-access content available to everyone, and share your expertise with a wider audience.

Timeline:

• Submissions open: 19 September 2024
• Submissions deadline: 19 March 2025
• Expected publication date: 30 June 2025

Disability, spirituality, and belonging

As John Mbiti asserts, Africans are inherently spiritual, hence, spirituality thrives within the African context. Spirituality and its embedded power within the African context, has often been weaponised or utilised to influence the lived experience of disability. Within the African indigenous cosmos, the spiritual informs the physical. Therefore, the way power is wielded by various guardians of spiritual practices-gatekeepers/leaders, families and communities have a real influence on the sense of belonging and performance of citizenship by persons with disabilities in the African context. Spirituality practices and belief systems in Africa, exert power to facilitate or impede a sense of belonging for persons with disabilities. Various literature equates belonging to citizenship and identity discourses. However, beyond this, belonging can also be feeling ‘at home’ in a place (place-belongingness) while also an expression of justification, or resistance of forms of socio-spatial inclusion ⁄ exclusion practices (Antonsich, 2010).

We recognize the significance of diverse spiritual beliefs within the African context, and the embeddedness of power within these beliefs. We acknowledge its capacity to influence belonging and shape inclusive development and practices for the lived experiences of people with disabilities and attainment of their rights to citizenship in Africa. Having this knowledge, we then begin to address these Othering structures within our society. We can also work towards a more inclusive society that celebrates diversity and recognizes and accepts the value and potential of every individual, beginning from our spiritual spaces and belief systems.

Therefore, through drawing on multiple disciplinary lenses and diverse spiritual orientations, we invite contributions on an exploration of disability, spirituality and belonging, and how these interplays with power dynamics and expression of citizenship for persons with disabilities. Authors are invited to frame their respective papers in connection with their research interests, in a way that will provide a comprehensive overview of the concepts above, in relation to their context and work.  

Objective:

1. To interrogate the embeddedness of power and belonging within diverse spiritual practices and belief systems in Africa.
2. To understand the influence of these spiritual practices and belief systems on the lived experience and positioning of disability and expression of citizenship within the African continent.
3. To uncover notions of inclusion and exclusion as it pertains to disability, spirituality, belonging and citizenship.

Recommended topics:

Disability, spirituality and belonging and its entanglement with:

• Power
• Inclusion/exclusion
• Identity politics
• Citizenship

Manuscript information:

The author guidelines include information about the types of articles received for publication and preparing a manuscript for submission. Read the full submissions guidelines.

Submission procedure:

When submitting your article to the African Journal of Disability, choose ‘Special Collection: Disability, spirituality and belonging’ as the article type. You can access the submission portal on the journal’s website after logging in with your personal credentials. For further information on the submission process, visit the journal procedure page.

All submissions will undergo an anonymous review process to guarantee high scientific quality and relevance to the subject. The Editor-in-Chief will make the final decision on acceptance, revision, or rejection based on the feedback from the reviewers.

We will be happy to provide you with any assistance during the submission and application process. Kindly enquire at submissions@ajod.org.

All submissions and inquiries should be directed to the attention of the Guest Editors:

• Dr Chioma Ohajunwa (Africa Centre for HIV and AIDS Management, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Stellenbosch University) – Chioma@sun.ac.za
• Dr Nafisa Mayat (Division of Disability Studies, Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Cape Town) – Nafisa.mayat@uct.ac.za
• Dr Adèle Ebrahim (Department of Health and Rehabilitation Science, University of Cape Town) – adele.ebrahim@uct.ac.za

We would be honoured to receive your positive reply and look forward to receiving your article.