Out of a coma and into a wheelchair: Social and physical accessibility and the construction of disabled identity

Abstract

This chapter explores the process through which one's moral career proceeds as one acquires a physical disability later in life. The author, who acquired a disability later in life, explores Goffman's notion of “moral career” as a process constructed from one's experience with both physical access and social access to the environment in which everyday interaction takes place. Using the extant literature and his personal experience, the author argues that one's identity as a person with a disability is always in a state of evolution. Rather than stable and fixed, it is unstable, although the rate of change is quite variable.

Citation

Chaskes, J. (2010), "Out of a coma and into a wheelchair: Social and physical accessibility and the construction of disabled identity", Barnartt, S.N. (Ed.) Disability as a Fluid State (Research in Social Science and Disability, Vol. 5), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 49-66. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3547(2010)0000005005