Politicising Polio

Diana Szántó is a cultural anthropologist, independent researcher and activist. She worked for more than 20 years as the leader of a Hungarian-based NGO, creating opportunities, channels and incentives for intercultural understanding, learning and co-existence. Her research focuses on urban anthropology, migration and social movements, and the intersection of international development, social justice and health. In recent years she has been teaching medical anthropology and qualitative research methodology at the Health and Community program of the School for International Training.

Part I: Staging a play (A Critical Ethnography of Disability).- 1. The Set: Parallel Worlds (Sierra Leone on the World Stage).- 2. The Cast Onstage and Off: Polio and Beggars on Wheels.- 3. Writing the Play: Creating Disability and DPOs.- 4. Scripts about disability. Stories from the polio-houses.- Part II: After the Play? (An Ethnographic Critique of Project Society).- 5. Discrimination as Structural Violence.- 6. Perceptions, representations and coloniality.- 7. Expulsions: Disability, Power, Land, and Citizen’s Rights.- 8. Hope.