Greetings to all who read and post to this most interesting list.
I'm researching 'discretionary' or 'voluntary' powered
mobility by individuals who may be able to walk or propel a
manual chair. Issues I'm considering are:
- the oppressive ideologies reproduced within our heads,
our families' heads, and the medical/insurance profession:
- cure-at-all-costs: better to 'overcome'
disability than integrate it into our identities
- the let's-look-normal ideology--
including the recent development of the supercrip
manual wheeler as paradigmatic
- the linguistic errors: "wheelchair bound" and "confined
to a wheelchair" don't allow for the part-time wheelchair
user
- the pity economy as a zero-sum game
('I'm not disabled enough
to use a chair' = I might overdraw on the pity
account not leaving enough for the truly worthy)
- physical/architectural barriers (happily minimizing here
in the US)
I've found a few gems from the medical side:
- Lisa Iezzoni is a physician with MS who wrote "When
Walking Fails" a challenging piece about the importance of
mobility (JAMA Nov 20, 1996 v276 n19 p1609(5)) and has
begun a three year research project on physicians'
atttitudes to mobility issues.
- A Dutch study "Physical strain in daily life of
wheelchair users with SCI." (Medicine & Science in Sports &
Exercise. 26(6):661-70, 1994 Jun.) that supports the notion
that "activity" is not "exercise"; manual wheelchair users'
daily routines provide opportunities for strain, not
aerobic workouts.
- Craig Hospital's RRTC on Aging with Spinal Cord Injury's
excellent piece on switching to a power chair
<http://www.sni.net/rehab/Mets/power.htm>
And there are ample resources on the 'big picture' from the
social-model approach.
I'm particularly interested in *specific* writings on these
issues from a disability-pride identity.
Jean Stewart's (out-of-print) novel, _The Body's Memory_
addresses this directly, linking the decision to use a
wheelchair to enlightenment regarding disability rights.
But no other works have come to mind.
I've heard mumbles about the internal "pecking order": the
more severe one's disability, the 'cooler' one is within
the activist community. Can anyone provide written
references promoting or criticizing this? (I'm familiar
with Carol Gill's "Questioning Continuum" anthologized in
_The Ragged Edge_.) My intuition is this pecking order
reproduces the zero-sum pity economy.
Email and/or list discussion encouraged and welcomed!
Cheers.
Ms Jesse "the K" Kaysen
814 Hiawatha Drive
Madison WI 53711 USA
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