How to setup server to ignore .htaccess files in subdirectories.

I would like to set up a configuration so that some, but not all, .htaccess files are ignored - or handled as a regular (text-)file.

This should be setup in an .htaccess file and prevent i.e. Apache from processing .htaccess files in any subdirectory to the current. But I don't know which directive(s) to use.

The reason is that I have a folder where user uploads are stored. To prevent the user executing scripts (i.e. php) I have changed the handler for the files of the directory and subdirectories. But they could still upload an .htaccess to a subdirectory that reverted that change.

I know that the software should also dissallow certain files - and it will - but I don't wanna rely on the software alone, since 'any' bug could potentially render that useless.

I also cannot use the Apache conf file for this.
And lastly, the solution has to know nothing about the actual directory names it trying to protect.

Is it possible?

Thanks for your help,
Jakob