Lost in translation, negotiating disability, international development policies and practices in Cambodia: A case study

International development organisations have introduced into their aid policies the rights-based concepts of disability including participation and inclusion, which mirror those found in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Given the origin of these concepts in the West, their extension to international development policies and practice has promoted scholarly debates about their relevance and practicality for people with disabilities in developing countries who have different lived experiences shaped by different cultures. The diverse meanings attributed to disability, participation and inclusion have also prompted critical debates about how they are best translated in practice to meet local needs and priorities of people with disabilities in developing countries. This thesis adds light to these debates by analysing the practice of the ‘Development for All’ policy of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) for people with disabilities in rural Cambodia. The research has three overarching objectives. First, it explores the dominant concepts of disability, participation and inclusion offered by Cambodians with disabilities and how they construct their self-identities and worldviews as they relate to inclusion and participation. Secondly, it examines how stakeholders in the DFAT-funded program negotiated and contested the concepts of disability, participation and inclusion in the program. And thirdly, it explores how these concepts adopted for the program informed the lives of Cambodians with disabilities.

To achieve these objectives, a qualitative research method was used. It included a case of the Capacity Building for Disability Cooperation (CABDICO), a Cambodian grassroots NGO funded by the Australian Red Cross (ARC) through DFAT. To analyse the research data, Western theories were used, such as Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, field of practice and capital, as well as Cambodia’s social theories which entailed drawing on Cambodian literature such as poems, proverbs and metaphors so as to value local knowledge production in the global South.

The research found that the meanings attributed to the concepts of disability and normalcy in Cambodia are shaped by its deeply-rooted culture and religions, which understands disability in terms of limitations to bodily and cognitive functions. The research pointed to the centrality of a Soboros model which involves people using ceremonies giving to those less well-off to gain better karma[1]. This suggests that when working with people with disabilities, programs that aim to enhance participation and inclusion should focus on improved physical and cognitive functions as well as on income. Doing this would enable people with disabilities to demonstrate their self-worth by enabling them to be self-sufficient and to contribute to their family economy and community.

The research also revealed that in the processes of delivering services to Cambodian people with disabilities, donors (DFAT and ARC) made important program decisions based on their superior access to economic, cultural and symbolic capital, which sidelined the local knowledge of local organisations (CABDICO), people with disabilities and their representative organisations. This unconscious privileging of Western assumptions embedded in policy practice resulted in program outcomes that were not sustainable and produced limited opportunities for Cambodians with disabilities to thrive. This thwarted any hope Cambodians with disabilities may have had for realising their rights and equality, while confirming local cultural and religious beliefs about impairments and disabilities which further disadvantaged Cambodian people with disabilities.

Recommendations for change based upon the findings of this research are made in the final section of Chapter 8.


[1] The term karma, rooted in Sanskrit, literally means action or deed. In Buddhism, karma is a wilful or volitional action of body, speech and mind that produces effects (Anson 2011).