The ‘locked door’ of
neurological rehabilitation:
using life histories to capture
the complexity of
rehabilitation following
acquired brain injury
Jonathan Harvey
The Open University
jonathan.harvey@open.ac.uk
Format
► Part
auto/biographical
► Part ethnographic
► Semi-structured interviews
► Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and Stroke
survivors
Sudden onset neurological
‘injuries’
► Acquired
► NOT
brain injury, spinal cord injury etc.
progressive neurological pathologies
such as MS, motor neurone disease,
dementia etc.
Life histories
► Semi-structured
► Long-term
interviews
focus
► Voluntary organisations
► Volunteering
- seen as an ‘ally’
- enables assessment of capacity
Doors as Barriers for disabled
people
► Not
just abstract.
► Locked doors are found throughout neurorehab units.
► Represent and reinforce limits of disabled
bodies (Barton and Oliver 1997; Barnes, Mercer and Shakespeare 1999;
Tregaskis 2001; or many other social model accounts)
-Medical gaze
-Us versus them
Analysis – ‘Emancipation’
► Much
disability research driven by need to
be ‘emancipatory’ (Barnes 2002;2003)
► Who
the hell am I?
Analysis - ‘biopower’?
► Constantly
under observation of medical
‘experts’.
► Activity restricted, monitored and reviewed
by others.
► ‘the acts, behaviours, and practises that emerge as “problematizations” [such
as disability] within certain networks of knowledge are dynamically linked to
forms of power that turn individuals into subjects by tying them to identities’
(Tremain 2005: 14)
► Can
this surveillance be escaped?
► Does this underestimate disabled people?
(Davis 2010; Hughes 2005; 2007)
Analysis - Fluidity
► Remain
open to engage with data
► Growth
and change
-
(Deleuze and Guattari 1987/2004)
Rhizome
► Nomadism
(Braidotti 1991; 2003; 2006; 2011)
- Figurative - fluidity
Is the locked door of
neurological rehabilitation
escapable?
► Fluidity
could help to escape negative
conceptualisation
► Time – future destiny?
► Community rehabilitation
► Social re-integration
► Extent of professional gaze
► Individual choice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
References
►
►
►
►
►
►
►
►
►
►
►
►
►
Barton,L and Oliver,M (1997) Introduction: The Birth of Disability Studies’ in Barton,L and Oliver,M ‘Disability
Studies: Past, Present and Future’ Leeds, The Disability Press.
Barnes,C (2002) ‘Emancipatory disability research: project or process?’ Journal of Research in Special Educational
Needs 2 (1), 1-13.
Barnes,C (2003) ‘What a difference a decade makes: reflections on doing emancipatory disability research’
Disability and Society 18 (1), 3-17.
Barnes,C, Mercer,G and Shakespeare,T (1999) ‘Exploring Disability, A Sociological Introduction’ London, Polity
Press.
Braidotti,R (1991) ‘Patterns of Dissonance: A study of women in contemporary philosophy’ Cambridge, Polity
Press.
Braidotti,R (2003) ‘Becoming woman: Or sexual difference revisited’ Theory, Culture and Society 20 (3), 43–64.
Braidotti,R (2006) ‘Transpositions. On nomadic ethics’ Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Braidotti,R (2011) (2nd ed) ‘Nomadic subjects: embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist
theory’ Chichester, Columbia University Press.
Davis,L,J (2010) ‘The End of Identity Politics: On Disability As an Unstable Category’ in (3rd ed) ‘The Disability
Studies Reader’ Oxon, Routledge. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987) (reprinted 2004) ‘A thousand
plateaus:Capitalism and schizophrenia.’ London, Continuum.
Hughes,B (2005) ‘What Can a Foucauldian Analysis Contribute to Disibility Theory?’ in Tremain,S ‘Foucault and
the Government of Disability’ University of Michigan, University of Michigan Press.
Hughes,B (2007) ‘Being Disabled: Toward a Critical Social Ontology for Disability Studies’ Disability & Society 22
(7) 673-684.
Tregaskis,C (2002) ‘Social Model Theory: the story so far...’ Disability and Society 17(4), 457-470.
Tremain,S (2005) ‘Foucault, Governmentality and Critical Disability Theory’ in Temain,S ‘Foucault and the
Government of Disability’ University of Michigan, University of Michigan Press.