EMBODIED OTHERNESS AND URBAN CITIZENSHIP: RETHINKING DISABILITY, SPACE, AND BELONGING IN KENYAN CITIES

Abstract (English)

This paper interrogates how bodily difference and social otherness are experienced, negotiated, and contested by persons living with physical disabilities (PWDs) in urban landscapes of four main cities in Kenya. Through a phenomenological and anthropological inquiry grounded in embodied encounters via walk-along interviews, lived spatial mapping, and narrative testimony, the paper examines how PWDs in Kenya navigate exclusionary infrastructures and social imaginaries that render them both hypervisible “others” and invisible urban citizens.
Drawing on theoretical frameworks of embodiment (Csordas 1990), phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty 1962), and disability anthropology (Whyte & Ingstad 2007), the research situates the disabled body as a critical lens for understanding urban inequality, symbolic violence, spatial injustice and contested forms of belonging. Everyday activities, such as boarding public transport, accessing health facilities, or crossing a street become moral and political struggles that lay bare the exclusions in contemporary urban citizenship. This is redefined amidst new solidarities, crises, and movements (Nixon, 2011, Soja, 2010) The paper calls for a rethinking of urban design, governance, and participation that centers embodied experiences of PWDs. It advocates for inclusive planning rooted in universal design, recognition of embodied knowledges, and cultural interventions to dismantle disability stigma. This work contributes to broader conversations on humanity, dignity, and the right to material and symbolic belonging in emergent African cities.