Different Boundaries, Different Barriers: Disability Studies and Lakota Culture

Abstract

The authors have chosen to show how anthropology can be engaged in disability studies by demonstrating its use in a study of Lakota (Sioux) constructs of impairment, disability, and handicap. The description is based on a questionnaire, open-ended interviews at several locations in South Dakota, and the personal knowledge of the authors, one of whom is Dakota and the other an anthropologist. Two models are employed to facilitate the contrast between Lakota and Euro-centric cultures: the concept of personhood and the bipolar typology of cultures as either collectivist or individualist. Values in Lakota culture that support collectivism are related to the kind of barriers faced by Lakotas.