The Embodiment of impairment: disability and its disappearance Nick Watson University Strathclyde Centre for of Glasgow Disability Research

Structure of talk Brief review of the literature Method for data collection Data Concluding comments

Disability Studies and Impairment Disability studies has, to a large extent neglected the body in favour of a structural, materialist analysis Disability is about discrimination and exclusion and these processes operate independently of the experience of people with impairment

Medical Sociology and the Impairment Body Medical Sociology has tended to emphasise illness and individual experience rather than issues of inequality or powerlessness at the centre of research with disabled people.

Methods The data are drawn form of series of interviews with 28 people, 14 men and 14 women with a physical impairment living in Scotland

NW: How do you think your disability affects your view of yourself? Jill: But I said i don’t look on myself as disabled – I can’t walk, that’s it. NW: Does that affect the way you look a your body then, that you can’t walk? Jill: We’re always coming back to this body – is it so unique?

My drama group put on a show in October and so I was busy with that and involved with rehearsals and aspects of the writing and bits of the performing as well, so that seemed to go very well. And then after that I went to Toronto with a friend of mine. Kyle

It’s just as normal, as usual. I am not doing anything different. Not from what I have done before, from the last time I saw you. No, I probably can do a bit more due to the weather and that. I do a lot more here and there but apart from that no. Tommy

NW: How would you sum up your ow health at present? Shonagh: Good. NW: Good? Why? Shoagh: I’ve got no problems. I’m never at the doctor and never stuck in bed. I’m always flitting about, I’m never in, I would say.

Jill: I feel good but I don’t look on myself as disabled. It’s my legs that don’t work, the rest is fine. NW: So you view yourself as healthy? Jill: Aye. Because I can do everything an ablebodied person can do.

Terry: It’s being able to do what you want. From the wheelchair point of view. NW: What do you mean? Terry: Well, there’s certain things that you, it’s being able to do everything that I can, that I want to do, in a wheelchair.

NW: How are you at the moment? Senga: Fair to middling, fair to middling, in that I have a very bad foot at the moment which means I have to stay in bed. I have been very ill because I had a bit of heart failure which caused coronary oedema and very serious breathing problems and that is something that needs to be kept in check all the time now. But apart from all that, I keep well… Considering things before the heart pro´blem that was diagnosed last year – I was really very healthy in general health, I kept very well for many, many years.

Allowing me to attend meetings, allowing me to do all the normal things others do – go out to pubs, go out to dinner, the cinema, family and friends and generally socialise and still conduct myself at meetings…. By going out to meetings and participating I feel that I am competing on an equal basis. Steve

I think my health is pretty good at the moment. It’s been, the last year, health wise, I’ve been pretty clear, like, with infections and urine infections and any other illnesses. I’ve not had any illnesses in the last year, so I’ve been pretty fit, but the year before that I was suffering quite regularly with urine infections, this was over the span of a year. But I managed to get cleared up, and I’ve not had a urine infection for about a year now, so my health is, I’m pretty stable apart from the odd cold or something like that. Aiden

No matter how many times people say ´Disabled people are not second-class citizens’ even just walking down the street and not being able to go into a shop because the door is too narrow says that you are second-class citizen. Abi

I get a lot of different signals, like goose piples if I’ve got a bladder problem or a bowel problem, I spasm if there’s somethinggoing on. Goose pimples. They’re a great indication that there’s something wrong withmy bladder… I’ve gone goose pimpled in bed, suddenly realised, had a wee feel down, got it all sorted out, whereas had I not had the goose pimples I could have lain on for another 4 hours and been saturated without knowingit. Lorna

I cannot accept what’s wrong with me. I keep… I keep having this imagination in my head and think, one day I’ll be able to get up and start walking, and you know, I just can’t accept it… I just have to get so much done for me, and I can’t do ordinary things like changing beds. There’s certain things I’d like that I can’t do now, like when i go to bed, I can’t manage to get myself from the chair into the bed, I have to get a help over. Charis

To me, to be healthy is to be walking, um, in my mind, I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but people in wheelchairs should be allowed voluntary euthanasia. Because I certainly would. I think the quality of life has gone when you’re in a wheelchair. I think, you know, personally.