Información sobre medio ambiente

Participants expressed a deep seated desire to do social missions in the gym but did not specifically state they wished to do so in the role of a gym instructor. This changed when InstructAbility gave participants a narrative resource which they felt drawn to and which made sense to them. Through the medium of an advertisement (Figure c), the narrative of InstructAbility stated ‘We are seeking individuals, like you, who have experienced and

overcome barriers to exercise and who want to help other disabled people in the gym. If you join InstructAbility, we will train you to become a gym instructor. You will then be in a

position to help and support others in the gym. This narrative resource worked on participants

in various ways which instilled in them a desire to become a gym instructor.

First, the advertisement’s narrative told a story of disabled people transitioning from gym clients to gym instructors and being in a position to help others. This narrative spoke to participants in a way which made them feel that the story was directed towards them:

118 “It was like an eureka moment it really was. I had come from doing a work out and the advert was in the locker room. I honestly felt it was destiny; this is for me. For months I’d been searching for ways to further my exercise and my work and as soon as I read ‘disabled instructor’, yes, of course! That’s it! To be honest I felt a complete idiot for not thinking about it before because it seemed so obvious to me that this was it, my calling in a way I suppose. But then how many disabled gym instructors do you know? Not exactly common is it?” (James, chronic pulmonary hypertension, 56)

This feeling of a story being meant for them is akin to what Frank (2010) termed

narrative habitus. As Frank (2010) discussed:

“some stories are heard, immediately and intuitively as belonging under one’s skin. Narrative habitus is a disposition to hear some stories as those that one ought to listen to, ought to repeat on appropriate occasions, and ought to be guided by” (p.53;

emphasis in original).

As such, narrative habitus is a person’s embodied disposition toward hearing certain stories as ‘for them’. In the case of this research, participants were made aware of the story to become a gym instructor and were caught up and hailed by this story thereby allowing them to start seeing the person who they wanted to be. Moreover, although participants wished to embody an activist identity and do social missions, they had not necessarily envisaged doing so as a gym instructor. Thus, narrative (specifically the idea of a disabled person becoming a gym instructor) also worked on participants as a subjectifier arousing the participants’

imaginations to see themselves in this role. That is, not only did this story help organise and make sense of participants’ embodied feelings (e.g. the anger they felt at their disabling experiences) but it also did the work of identity subjectification; “telling people who they ought to be, who they might like to be and who they can be” (Frank, 2006, p. 430). In other

119 words, it introduced participants to an identity which would allow them to do the social missions they desired.

120 Another way the InstructAbility narrative influenced participants’ decision to become a gym instructor was that it did more than show individuals a possible future self, it also provided a connective sequence where participants could see how to become this person:

“The way I saw it was that this was a way that I could feel fulfilled and do what I want to do. It was like InstructAbility had laid a road of where I wanted to get

to…Literally seeing someone in a wheelchair training in the advert showed me it was possible and that if I did InstructAbility I would be one of them and it gave me a direction of what I need to do to become that person. So, I guess you could say I was more focused because I knew then what I needed to do rather than just drifting and having a go at stuff that might work.” (Polly, brittle bone disease, 26)

As well as presenting a possible future self, the narrative resource provided by InstructAbility provided a narrative path to become this person. Narrative paths are guides that show people a way to do things they want to do and be people they wish to be (Partington, et al., 2005). These paths are laid through people sharing information, advice and providing orientation about how to navigate social worlds and negotiate new identities in unfamiliar situations (Pollner & Stein, 1996). By providing a preview of what could be, narrative paths “may increase or reduce anxiety, motivation and morale depending, of course, on what is portrayed as awaiting the traveller” (Pollner & Stein, 1996, p. 219). Contextually, by presenting a possible self as a gym instructor and a means to achieve this self, the narrative path provided by InstructAbility may have contributed to participants’ specific motivation to become this person. As Phoenix & Sparkes (2006) stated, narrative paths shape the actions of people by directing them towards specific activities in the present which will result in specific outcomes in the future. Thus, the provision of this new narrative may have contributed to participants’ motivation to become a gym instructor as with more resources at their disposal,

121 different ways of being and acting were opened to them (Frank, 2010; Parsons & Lavery, 2012).