Beyond Disability: An Intersectional Process for Promoting Community-Based Inclusive Development in Kenya

Abstract

The aim of Community-Based Inclusive Development (CBID) is to empower marginalized people to be fully engaged in the local, social and economic life especially those with a disability. Nevertheless, the conventional CBID methods may pose the threat of homogenization; they cannot respond to the intersection of disability with gender, ethnicity, poverty and age that produce compound exclusion. This paper includes the conceptual framework of intersectional advocacy that connects the theory of intersectionality and the community-based action. Using a literature review on social justice, community psychology, and human rights-based practices to examine how advocacy, through an intersectional lens, can reconstruct structural power imbalances at the local level, the paper demonstrates the effectiveness of advocacy as a tool to build a community-focused intervention. The results indicate that intersectional advocacy is more than mere inclusion of the marginalized groups; it involves a transition to more transformative and bottom-up approaches that consider the particular, interdependent needs of those who are most behind. This paper suggests the use of a three-fold framework, which includes intersectional awareness, coalition solidarity, and localized praxis, to inform practitioners on how to apply an inclusive development especially responsive to the complexity of the human identity. This strategy is crucial towards the development of truly equal communities where CBID is not a one-fits-all model, but a more precise, justice-based system.