Sticks and wheelchairs for elderly people in central Uganda: values of utility, provenance and presentation

Abstract

While mobility-assistive devices ease movement and independence of persons with disabilities, their use may depend on their social and symbolic meaning. This article departs from our observation that elderly people in Wakiso in Uganda own a variety of assistive technologies yet do not utilize them all equally. Our findings are based on data collected through conversations, interviews and observations of thirty elderly people visited in their homes between July 2016 and January 2017. We found that elderly people with mobility disabilities valued devices for the greater autonomy they afforded, although dependence was also valued in some situations. The source or provenance of a device imbued it with meaning. Holding onto it regardless of how much one used it was in a way like holding onto the social relationship that the artefact represented, and the same can be said of abandoning it. Devices were also valued according to the manner in which they portrayed the user to the rest of the world – either positively as cosmopolitan and cared for, or negatively as sickly.