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

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I‟m being pushed into a subject position that I‟m not happy with. I am being
disabled by him. I sense that he is fixing me with a gaze of... pity, I suppose... this is
not something I want.
Some discourses, and the subject positions and modes of subjectivity and identity
that they constitute, have more power than others (Weedon, 2004:18).
This is a man who performs mechanical tasks, selling tickets, providing information,
waving trains in and out of the station... repetitive tasks, day in, day out... and yet...
he occupies a subject position as a non-disabled person.
In this chapter I draw on participants‟ accounts of their own experiences to explore their
subject positioning within conflicting disability discourses. I do this in order to develop an
understanding of what being disabled means for disabled people and to begin to consider
reasons given for accepting or rejecting disability identity. I conclude by offering revised
affirmative model definitions.
Discussion of themes raised in my first series of interviews will cover this and the following
chapter. These themes are not dealt with equally in terms of length but in terms of their
relevance to the development of my thesis. For example, my discussion of the theme of
Distance takes up the whole of this chapter. The names I have given themes are intended as
rough indicators of thematic detail rather than as precise descriptions. Each covers a wide
range of issues talked about by participants. I have also divided my thematic discussions
into sub-headed sections order to make them easier to follow.
Distance
I use the concept of distance to refer not only to the actual physical distance that frequently
separates the lives of disabled and non-disabled people, but also to the emotional distance
that is an outcome of that separation.
Describing her early childhood experience as a blind girl living in East Kilbride, Roshni
remembers clearly her sense of being included by her playmates as just „one of the gang‟:
When I was very, very young I never felt that there was anything I couldn‟t do… I
climbed trees, I would go out to play with the other kids, I would cross roads and
run in front of cars and do lots of dangerous things like that… but I was never aware
of the fact that I couldn‟t see… (l.1:24ff.)