UC Irvine

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

Making Sense of Disability and Development in La Paz, Bolivia by Megan Neal Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology University of California, Irvine, 2021 Professor Tom Boellstorff, Chair

This dissertation examines the development of a multisensory therapy used to treat children with multiple disabilities at a public institution, focusing on medical expertise, social inequality, and the senses. Drawing on twelve months of ethnographic research I conducted from 2017 to 2018 in La Paz, Bolivia, I examine multisensory therapy sessions where I observed children diagnosed with severe multiple disabilities at a public institution. To contextualize this clinical work, I observed Bolivians with disabilities and their families in public and domestic contexts that were part and parcel of their everyday lives. I also conducted interviews with multisensory therapists, Bolivians with disabilities, families, government officials, and rehabilitation specialists. I highlight how disabled citizens in Bolivia experience exclusionary barriers linked to ability, gender, ethnicity, geography, and wealth inequality. I show how these forms of exclusion problematize how neurological impairments are being constructed as barriers to development in medical approaches as well as national and international development projects. In weaving this data together, I suggest that although rehabilitative models tend to focus on developing individuals, the everyday practice of multisensory therapy was heavily shaped by social and political inequalities related to ability, class, gender, race, and geography.