Negotiating identities: the lives of Pakistani and Bangladeshi young disabled people

Abstract

Research has generally amalgamated minority ethnic (all called ‘Asian’ or ‘black’) disabled young people’s experiences and failed to acknowledge the multiple aspects of Asian and black disabled identities, for example how the combined attributes of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, culture, class and disability shape their perspectives and experiences. In an attempt to address this issue my doctoral research explored the experiences and perspectives of 13 young Pakistani and Bangladeshi disabled people. By drawing on the substantive and theoretical findings which emerged from my analysis in this paper I shall consider how multiple aspects of identity, such as ethnicity, disability and gender, affect this population’s identity and self‐image and how this makes their experiences different from white disabled young people and other minority groups’ experiences.

Keywords:

• young people
• identity
• ethnicity
• disability

Acknowledgements

A special thanks to all the young people who took part in this research. I am also grateful to Professor Paul Bywaters and Professor Gayle Letherby, for their advice and encouragement.

Notes

1. Dr Zoebia Islam previously Zoebia Ali, is a Research fellow at the Medical School, University of Warwick.