In the field of disability studies there have been a myriad of approaches to understanding and conceptualising identity. These approaches adopt a variety of theoretical orientations. It has been useful to follow the distinction made by Hall (1996), between two contrasting applications in this body of work. The first model has essentialist foundations and suggests that there is an intrinsic aspect to individuals’ identities. These identities can be founded on a shared experience, origin or structure. Watson (2002) argues that much of the writing on disability identity and identity politics in disability studies can be classified under this approach.
In relation to the medical model outlined in the previous chapter, Shakespeare (1996) suggests that theoretical references to identity based on psychological and biological differences are biased and entwined with medical definitions of impairment. In society, dominant disability discourses define the identities of a person in terms of what he/she ‘cannot’ do. Subsequently, on a daily basis people with impairments are confronted with narratives of ‘otherness’, tragedy and medicalisation. This is reinforced by Hargreaves (2000), “the impaired body immediately and conspicuously signifies difference and abnormality. The disabled body is tied to self and identity in a most intense and evocative way” (p.185). In this individualist framework, the presence of impairment is the basis for identity formation and the ‘ascription’ of disabled identities.
This approach is also exemplified in writings from a social perspective in disability studies (Watson 2002). In the disabled peoples’ movement, concepts of identity and the ‘self’ have been
49 founded on notions of oppressive social relations with a focus on the collectivity of individuals’ experiences. Watson (2004) argues that the social model rests on an unreflexive acceptance of the disabled/non-disabled distinction with an essentialist understanding of disability as a category. Thomas (1999) has termed these ‘categorical approaches’ to theorising disability. Typically, from this perspective, identity is understood as a common experience that is based on societal oppression. The underlying assumption is that individuals are unified in their attitudes towards disability rights and culture. This can be seen in the work of feminist disability writers such as Wendell (1996) and Morris (1991) who both undertake ‘categorical’ approaches to their understandings of disability and identity. Thomas (1999) argues that Morris sees no difficulty in referring to other disabled women as being ‘like’ her and utilises phrases such as ‘us’ and ‘we’, which signifies a collective experience. This demonstrates the idea that an individual’s identities are determined by the ‘categories’ to which they belong. Barnes (2012), Oliver (1996) and Finkelstein (1980) are other key authors writing in disability studies that promote the social model and the development of identities founded on collective experiences.
Thomas (1999) argues that categorical approaches suffer from a paradox. The difference that is identified and celebrated by disabled people might reinforce categories, which have been socially produced. For instance, one cannot assume that all individuals will have similar social and cultural experiences based on being part of a ‘disabled’ category. It can also be argued that these approaches isolate individual experience and present disabled people as a homogenous group. In disability studies, identity is often presented as something that is relatively stable, which denies the individuality of disabled people (Watson 2004). Potentially, this enforces an ahistorical, essential unity of disabled people; the assumption is that being disabled always gives rise to disabled identities.
Oliver (1996, cited in Huang 2005) suggests that disabled people can be identified through three key elements. These are, “the presence of impairment, the experience of externally imposed restrictions and self-identification as a disabled person” (p.5). Self-identification appears to be an important factor in essentialist approaches and is exemplified in the elements listed by Oliver, above. The underlying implication here is that individuals should take pride in their ‘coming out’ as disabled and should not feel shame in this. However, as Watson (2004) identifies, a key question then becomes: what about those individuals who wish to be ordinary, not different? Research has demonstrated that many disabled people do not self-identify as disabled (e.g. Huang and Brittain 2006, Watson 2002). This approach to understanding disabled as an identity fails to accommodate the individual in combination with contextual and situational factors.
50 The second model identified by Hall (1996) has poststrucuturalist roots and suggests that identities are developed through relations of discourse and power. There is a rejection of identity based on identity categories. The main argument suggests that a person is in a continual process of constructing a sense of ‘self’ through differentiation from that which is ‘other’. This is exemplified in the writings of Corker (1998, 1999) and Shildrick and Price (1996). Thomas (1999) argues that in these approaches one cannot just ‘be’ something or someone because one’s beingness has to be ‘performed’. It is suggested that ‘fixed’ categories need to be destabilised by deconstruction. Through the problematisation of identity categories and the destabilisation of binaries a new type of radicalism is believed to be possible (Thomas 1999). Poststructuralist writers would suggest that emancipatory movements, such as the disability movement, undermine any concept of identity and self. The argument focuses on ideas of disability and impairment. These are ‘empty’ concepts as they are constructed through relations of power, which means they cannot serve as a foundation for identity (Watson 2004).
There has been heavy criticism aimed at such ‘anti-essentialist’ understandings. The majority of these arguments focus on the emergence of identity through discursive means. Agency is understood through processes of reflection and ‘positionality’, which leaves little room for agency in a ‘humanist’ sense (Calhoun 1994). Dunn (1998) argues that this type of understanding requires the recognition of a presence of self or a ‘doer behind the deed’. This has led some to question why they should deconstruct their own identities when the oppressors’ identities are still so strong (Shakespeare 1996).
The tensions highlighted above, when looking at the theorisation of identity in disability studies literature, suggest a need to look beyond essentialist and deconstructionist ideas. Identities are formed in interaction between body, environment and social relations. ‘Biological’ determinism can be avoided by highlighting the cultural processes that shape different identities. The body is perceived of as a corporeal fact with its own unique reality; therefore, bodily experiences are not marginalised. In the symbolic interactionist tradition, identities are multiple and conveyed through signs or symbols (Blumer 1969). The social-relational approach to disability, in recognising the corporeal and social make-up of the body, is conducive to the interactionist idea that identity begins with the body.
Identity as narrative
Scholars in the field of disability studies are increasingly turning to the concept of narratives and narrative inquiry to explore identity in various situations and contexts (for example, Goodley, et al. 2004; Smith and Sparkes 2004, 2008; Sparkes and Smith, 2003; Thomas 1999). In the idea that identity is narratively constructed, self-identity is not something that is just given, it has to be routinely sustained in the reflexive activities of the individual (Goodley et al. 2004). It is the
51 individual’s sense of biographical continuity that provides the foundation for their own identity, and there is an argument for the ontological self (Somers 1994), living in the body. This means that group membership is not synonymous with identity formation; one is able to choose an identity and they can ignore or reject identities forced on them based on ascribed characteristics. However, the individuals’ biography cannot be wholly fictive, it must continually integrate events that occur in the external world and organise them into an ongoing ‘story’ about the self (Giddens 1991).
My own research emphasises providing a space for elite-level, disabled athletes to articulate and voice their experiences. However, I am not undertaking a narrative approach to theorising identity(ies) as it can be argued that this perspective fails to recognise what is happening outside of verbal communication and the non-verbal aspects of social interaction.
In an article on the ‘identity’ crisis in the social sciences, Brubaker and Cooper (2000) strongly critique narrative identity as outlined by Somers (1994). They contest “social life is indeed pervasively storied, but it is unclear why this storiedness should be axiomatically linked to identity” (Brubaker and Cooper 2000, p.12). The argument follows that there is a missing link between individuals’ stories and how this manifests in the formation of identities. They question how narrative location endows people with identities – however multiple, conflicting, or ambiguous they might be? This paper questions ‘soft’ approaches to identity formation, which, it can be argued, the narrative approach can be categorised under. They further argue:
“Weak conceptions of identity may be too weak to do useful theoretical work. In their concern to cleanse the term of its theoretically disreputable ‘hard’ connotations, in their insistence that identities are multiple, malleable, fluid, and so on, soft identitarians leave us with a term so infinitely elastic, as to be incapable of performing serious analytical work” (p.11).
With these critiques in mind it is important to clarify the nature of the processual approach that I have utilised. Some processual interactionists take an extreme situational view of the self and identities. The core argument is that there is no real self, only situated performances. Instead of carrying a core self from situation to situation, the person creates a new self in each situation, thus managing the impressions of the audience. However, the lens I have adopted takes a less ‘situated’ view of the self. It is important to acknowledge the influence of social and cultural forces that are potentially mediating the negotiation of identities, for instance race, class or gender (Allen-Collinson and Brown 2012). These aspects of a person’s identities will create a fairly stable sense of self but may change over time and could vary in different interactional situations.
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