A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

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Persons who act in the context of organised patterns of behaviour, i.e., in the context
of social structure, name one another in the sense of recognising one another as
occupants of positions. When they name one another they invoke expectations with
regard to each other‟s behaviour (Stryker, 2002:54).
Before she knew them, Rose regarded disabled people as alien. It was only through contact
that she addressed her own fear of being disabled. Rose‟s discovery that, actually, disabled
people were just the same as her provides another illustration of disability as role. It was the
word „disabled‟, and the expectations conveyed in that word, that she feared rather than
disabled people, who turned out to be rather ordinary. Rose continues by describing her
feelings towards other disabled people now:
Er… huge warmth… huge appreciation… and a real sense of relief at being
understood and understanding without having to go through all the preliminary
explanations, all that sort of thing… that, although we have very different disabilities
and very different means, nobody questions you… nobody says, when you say “I
can‟t use that toilet…” (laughs…) or “I can‟t get into that shop…” or “I can stand,
but I can‟t walk…” or what have you, they just accept it… because they know that
you‟re saying what is fact… not some elaborate story that has to… that you have to
be proved wrong in saying… and I‟ve got great friends with different disabilities…
some of them working, some of them not… some of them doing this, some doing
that, and I… couldn‟t manage without them… (l.1:770)
In talking of her relationship with her partner Hugh, Jennie says:
we felt we always connected on that wavelength anyway… he‟s always felt that
since getting ill he finds that he can talk properly with other people who have been
seriously ill… erm… there‟s none of this sort of feeling that you can‟t talk about
certain things for fear that you‟ll offend somebody‟s sensibilities, or shock them…
there‟s none of the feeling that you always have to be protective of other people
whilst getting on with your own business… while getting on with the business of
being yourself... people are a bit more realistic about the world being not a very nice
place all the time (laughs)... and that means, also, that you don‟t have to pretend that
the world is a terrible place all the time... people who have been through these