Becoming en-wheeled: the situated accomplishment of re-embodiment as a wheelchair user after spinal cord injury

Author: Papadimitriou, Christina

Source: Disability & Society, Volume 23, Number 7, December 2008 , pp. 691-704(14)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

This paper discusses the creative process of re-embodiment experienced by physically disabled adults who become wheelchair users. Interviews and observational data of adults (rehabilitation patients and persons living in the community) who use wheelchairs show how they redefine, re-examine or modify past experiences, abilities, lifestyles and habits in their efforts towards re-embodiment. The aim of this paper is to document the process of learning to use a wheelchair and making it a part of one's embodied existence. The paper shows that this process involves the negotiation of past and new habits, abilities and ways of doing. It argues against conceptualizing disability as an all encompassing state of being. Rather, the competence and abilities required to achieve wheelchair embodiment are analyzed as a situated accomplishment with social and political consequences.

Keywords: wheelchair use; embodiment; qualitative sociology; spinal cord injury

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687590802469420

Affiliations: 1: Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research, Chicago, USA

Publication date: 2008-12-01

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