Becoming en‐wheeled: the situated accomplishment of re‐embodiment as a wheelchair user after spinal cord injury

Abstract

This paper discusses the creative process of re‐embodiment experienced by physically disabled adults who become wheelchair users. Interviews and observational data of adults (rehabilitation patients and persons living in the community) who use wheelchairs show how they redefine, re‐examine or modify past experiences, abilities, lifestyles and habits in their efforts towards re‐embodiment. The aim of this paper is to document the process of learning to use a wheelchair and making it a part of one's embodied existence. The paper shows that this process involves the negotiation of past and new habits, abilities and ways of doing. It argues against conceptualizing disability as an all encompassing state of being. Rather, the competence and abilities required to achieve wheelchair embodiment are analyzed as a situated accomplishment with social and political consequences.

Keywords:

• wheelchair use
• embodiment
• qualitative sociology
• spinal cord injury

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Sociological Society in 2007. I am grateful to the participants of this study for their trust and willingness to talk to me about their lives. The editorial assistance of Francis C. Waksler and David A. Stone was invaluable. The contents of this paper were developed under a grant from the Department of Education, NIDRR grant number H133P080006 (PI: Allen Heinemann, PhD). However those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.