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Abstract
Meaning is fundamental to experiences of home, yet little is known about the meanings of home for adults with developmental disabilities. In this instrumental case study, contrasting experiences of two adults with developmental disabilities living in Alberta are examined. Data were gathered from semi-structured interviews dedicated to learning about configurations of support, challenges and successes in giving and receiving support, and future plans for support for each participant. Data were thematically analysed using theoretical concepts of existential insideness and outsideness. Our findings present one adult’s experience of being safe, enclosed and at ease as evidence of insideness, and the second adult’s experience of being threatened, exposed and stressed as evidence of outsideness. We discuss how meanings of home can be shaped by the nature of disability related behaviors and the corresponding responsiveness of caregivers and offer theory and policy implications of a relational interpretation of insideness and outsideness for adults with developmental disabilities.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Our use of instrumental case study is informed by Robert Stake’s (Citation1995) delineation of case studies with intrinsic versus instrumental purposes. Intrinsic case studies are undertaken with the purpose of comprehensively understanding the case itself, and do not focus on how the case relates to a general problem. In contrast, instrumental case studies build knowledge of the case with the purpose of understanding a general problem or phenomenon beyond the case.
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Notes on contributors
Bonnie Lashewicz
Bonnie Lashewicz is an associate professor in Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies in the University of Calgary’s Department of Community Health Sciences. Her program of qualitative research is anchored in feminist scholarship views that the power of research lies not only in whose perspectives are heard, but also in the steps through which perspectives are recorded and interpreted. Bonnie focuses on responsibilities and identities in relation to experiencing and providing support to people who experience, disability, mental health disorder and/or chronic disease diagnoses.
Raidah Noshin
Raidah Noshin is a master’s student in Clinical Social Work Practice specializing in Trauma-Informed Practice at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Social Work. She has contributed to a study that critically examines the structural and relational violence of ableism by analyzing caregiving relationships. Raidah’s interest lies in using a person-in-environment lens to investigate how oppression and marginalization manifest at the intersection of disability, race, gender and class.
Nick Boettcher
Nick Boettcher is a graduate student in Population & Public Health at the University of Calgary’s Department of Community Health Sciences. Nick has contributed to studies dedicated to interrogating deficit-oriented interpretations of disability and mental illness. Nick’s critical approach to public health scholarship stems from an interest in the evolving processes by which different types of knowledge about health and illness are generated and represented.
Faizah Tiifu
Faizah Tiifu is research assistant at the University of Calgary’s Department of Community Health Sciences. Faizah received a Master’s Degree in Anthropology from the University of Calgary. Faizah has contributed to research focused on cross-examining how social factors influence access to health services using multiple research methods. Faizah’s interest is in studying minority groups with a critical disability perspective to discover how vulnerable circumstances impact access to health care and services.