Commune and Procedural Level Challenges and Limitations in Conducting Social Research in Malaysia: A Case of Disabled People

This paper explores the challenges and limitations in conducting social research in Malaysia with special reference to the disabled people. These challenges and limitations derived from the research entitled “Towards the Betterment of Persons with Disabilities. A Comprehensive Study”, under the sub-programme “Rights and advocacy of the Persons with Disabilities in Malaysia”. The study was commissioned by the Humanities and Ethics Research Clusters, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This article analyzed the challenges and limitations in collecting public views about the rights of the disabled people. The challenges and limitations are divided into two types; commune level and procedural level. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how these challenges and limitations restricted the utilization of qualitative social research tools and techniques on this particular case study in Malaysia. The article provides a number of interesting points which would be useful guidelines to the researchers, policy makers, academics, and students who are interested in social research with the disabled people.