The indelible ink of the special stamp: an insider’s research essay on imprints and erasures

Abstract

The medical profession ascribes otherness to people with disabilities through diagnosis and expertism, which sets in motion discursive powers that oversee their exclusion through schooling and beyond. In this paper, I present a narrative pieced together from personal experiences of ducking and weaving the deficit discourse in ‘inclusive’ education, when seeking employment and in day-to-day family interaction as a person with severely impaired vision. This work builds on previous qualitative research I conducted in Queensland, Australia with a group of young people with impaired vision who attended an inclusive secondary school. I frame this discussion using Foucault’s conception of normalising judgement against the hegemony of normalcy, and consider that inclusion for people with disabilities is reminiscent of a haunting. Through this analysis, I demonstrate how my ideology is formed, and how it in turn shapes a research agenda geared toward seeking greater inclusion for young people with disabilities in schools.

Keywords:

• inclusive education
• critical disability studies
• deficit discourse
• narrative
• normalising judgement
• hauntology

Acknowledgements

The author’s sincerest gratitude must go to Joanne O’Mara and Julianne Moss for helping to find his voice in my work, and for their editorial assistance. The author also thanks the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions as to an appropriate theoretical direction for this paper.