The Skilling Journey Disability, Technology, and Sociality in Postconflict Northern Uganda

In Uganda, people affected by war-related impairments may engage in "skilling" as a way of dealing with the disability problem. The aim is often to acquire skills that can enable them to adapt to their new conditions. As we look closely at the process, two questions arise: How are the skills passed on to persons with disabilities (PWDs) translated into daily life experiences? How do these processes (re)shape the "world-making" of PWDs in such settings? In this paper, I examine skilling as a translation process-the interface between the sociotechnological innovations (skills) developed to deal with disability and the socioeconomic shifts due to violent conflict, and how such interface influences the making of disability worlds. I analyze the global-local (dis)connections and their influence on the skilling journey of PWDs. Through ethnographic vignettes in war-torn Gulu District in Uganda, I illustrate how skilling processes and PWDs' translation of technologies are influenced by changing socialities in the diverse domains of interaction: the individual and the collective, the formal and the informal, and the physical and the technological. I observe that skill is socially constructed: it is linked to people's lives not only through bodily (dys)functions alone but also through social connectivity-sociality.