How Zulu-speaking youth with physical and visual disabilities understand love and relationships in constructing their sexual identities
Popular socio-medical discourses surrounding the sexuality of disabled people have tended to subjugate young people with disabilities as de-gendered and asexual. As a result, very little attention has been given to how young people with disabilities in the African context construct
their sexual identities. Based on findings from a participatory research study conducted amongst Zulu-speaking youth with physical and visual disabilities in KwaZulu-Natal, this paper argues that young people with disabilities are similar to other non-disabled youth in the way they construct
their sexual identities. Using a post-structural framework, it outlines how the young participants construct discursive truths surrounding disability, culture and gender through their discussions of love and relationships. In this context, it is argued that the sexual identities' of young
people with physical and visual disabilities actually emerges within the intersectionality of identity discourses.
Keywords: South Africa; disability; gender hegemony; sexual identity; young people
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
Publication date: 21 October 2014
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