Michael wrote:
>I'm looking for narratives, personal accounts of disabled people and
their=20
>description of experience of disability a social barrier and more=20
>importantly, impairment...
And Ria replied:
"One other poster asked *why* we should look for accounts of
disability. What to do with them? It's an issue I'd like to explore
further, too.
My starting points:=20
- Direct personal experience of disability gives people an expertise
that's difficult to acquire in other ways
- It's worth *trying* to share that "from the inside" expertise with
others
- Personal narratives are one way of doing this"
I would say, only in part provocatively, that all (no exceptions; all means
all) accounts and narratives are personally, and culturally, created. The
personal accounts of people with disabilities have the potential (depending
on how we change cultural norms) for having equal weight to professional,
research accounts. Professional, research accounts are generally accorded
greater privilege in Western culture, denying voice to the lived experience
of people living outside socially-cartographic boundaries of the land of
Norm.
Phil Smith
Vermont Self-Determination Project
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