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

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each subject internalises ideological conventions and imperatives, and then
unconsciously uses these as regulatory yardsticks with which to measure and modify
social identity and comportment (Farmer, 2003[b]:36).
The third theme I want to develop relates to the affirmation of self. From a social model
view I would suggest that there are situations in everyday life, for example, on occasions
when access requirements have been fully met, when people with impairments are not
disabled; or, at least, are not being actively disabled. I have to be cautious here, for even at
this point if an impaired person knows that he is likely once again to encounter barriers as
soon as he moves into a different situation, he will or may still consider himself a disabled
person. But given the right environment, good personal assistance if required, and the right
company there are likely to be times when an impaired person can just be who they are and
temporarily forget about disability.
The affirmation of self involves the pleasure that can be taken in the simple fact of being
alive and unique – regardless of impairment and pain when these are present – and in valuing
one‟s own life for its own sake. Relating this to my thesis I would argue that this is
important because, whereas the social model concerns itself primarily with the exclusion of
people with impairments from opportunities to participate as equals within capitalism, the
affirmative model provides a tool with which to critique the values of capitalism. The
requirement to be normal involves accepting a role necessary to participate in the ongoing
business of accumulation. The validation of impairment as part of the self throws out a
challenge to normalising discourses.
Michael de Certeau (1997) has characterised everyday life as a site in which tactics are
employed in the multitude of minor points of resistance practiced by everyday people in their
everyday lives. Private pleasures are snatched which defy and subvert the conditions by
which lives are ordinarily constrained. In detailing some of the everyday pleasures enjoyed
by the participants in my research, I illustrate the sense of enjoyment that can characterise
disabled people‟s lives as much as anybody else‟s. Far from being an experience
overshadowed by an ever-present awareness of personal tragedy, life with impairment is
something that can be extremely satisfying.
Snapshots
Jack Levin (1996) uses the term „sociological snapshots‟ to describe the ways in which the
details of everyday life can be read as texts revealing the unceasing reproduction,
transformation and stabilisation of social structural relations. While some of my observations