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Hi everyone, I'm an undergraduate student at Stanford University in California, and I'm currently working on my senior honors thesis on the idea of disabled community. (How do people with disabilities define disabled community? How does it affect them in their lives? How does self-identification with disabled community vary by demographic factors?) I'm new to the list and really enjoy the conversations, and I hope some of you may be able to share your thoughts and ideas for my project. As a person with a disability, I gradually developed a notion of disabled community, which to me means both the small network of people with disabilities whom I know and interact with, as well as the global group of all people with disabilities, with whom I feel some connection and shared experience. But disabled community does not mean this to everyone, and entire populations may be somewhat excluded from "membership." In my project, I intend to examine what disabled community means to people, who feels they are part of a disabled community (examining factors such as race, gender, type of disability, etc.), and how disabled community may affect people's lives. I'm having some difficulty coming up with more concrete and testable questions and hypotheses as well as dealing with the connection between community and identity. And then I see "disability community" mentioned in some of your mailings, and I wonder if it even needs to be defined or examined at all! I would love to hear some of your thoughts and suggestions on my thesis, either on or off-list. Thanks! Jessica Lehman [log in to unmask] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%