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

lasted several hours and others only an hour I shall not examine these in their wholeness but
rather as snapshots highlighting, perhaps, something that happened in an instant or an
encounter that took place over several minutes. I shall, however, give these snapshots
context by explaining the scene within which they took place.
I have reproduced data which emerged in the midst of life, while in motion or in interaction
with other people (as opposed to during interviews), in a tidied-up version of the note form I
originally used to record them. This is intended to convey a sense of the animated rather
than reflective context in which this data was produced.
Norbert Elias has argued that if we are concerned with the process of transformation of
social structures, it is necessary to give attention to the ways in which, in the context of their
experiences of social structures, people contribute both to their reproduction and their change
(Elias, 1998:168). I have argued that we should regard disability as a role which upholds
contemporary social relations of inequality. The structures which circumscribe everyday life
and the institutions which uphold these structures may evolve and take different shape but
always reflect the interests of the socially dominant. The experience of disabled people at the
start of the second decade of the 21 st century is changed and improved in many ways from
the experience of thirty years ago, yet the role of disability within the capitalist edifice
remains the same.
The disabled role
Rose: Shopping
Rose took me around the centre of the highland town where she lives to let me see some of
the barriers she encounters as a wheelchair user whenever she comes shopping. She had
some things she would have wanted to buy anyway and we agreed that as she went about her
business of making purchases she would point out the barriers as she faced them. I should
feel free, Rose told me, to note what I liked, including any interpersonal encounters. She
showed me the restaurants she would like to go to but cannot get into (l.3:15ff.); the
inaccessible cash machine and the wheelchair lift into the bank that has to be operated by a
member of staff whose attention she has to attract from outside (l.3:48ff.); the hairdresser‟s
she uses, not because it has a good reputation but because it has access to the basins
(l.3:137ff.); the theatre which has an automatic door that is never switched on and a stair-lift
she has to ride on while strangers walking up the stairs ask her if she is enjoying herself
(l.3:165ff.); the unreachable high and low shelves in Woolworth‟s (l.256ff.); the inaccessible
customer lift in the local department store (l.3:341ff.); and the difficult ramp at Costas coffee
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