Individuation processes in disabled people. An approach through mobilities in rural areas of southern Chile

Abstract

Mobilities are a social practice, which is managed around gaining access to services and activities that are important for daily life. At the same time, it is interpreted as a structural test where networks and resources are necessary to achieve them. With a qualitative approach, this research shows how disabled people in the South of Chile plan and achieve their mobilities using the resources available from their family and institutional networks. The results suggest that people together with their family, ‘kith,’ ‘other informal’, public and private institutions achieve ‘making possible’ their mobilities. Thus, they can access various services: healthcare, withdraw pensions, go shopping and deal with bureaucracy. Finally, we conclude that mobilities ‘produce the individual,’ in the sense that, depending on the source of the social supports that allow their mobilities, they may be considered ‘agentic’ or ‘institutionalised’ individuals.

POINTS OF INTEREST

• Mobilities allow access to services and activities of interest, and therefore play a key role in the social inclusion of disabled people.

• Mobilities can also be interpreted as daily challenges that people are forced to face in order to access various daily activities.

• Available research on this topic and the results of this study suggests that disabled people in rural areas manage to carry out their mobilities mainly due to support from family, institutional and ‘other informal’ networks.

• Mobility and its management might be incorporated into public policies, leading to improvements in the conditions for accessibility of disabled people, above all in rural areas.

Keywords:

• Disability
• mobilities
• individuation
• structural test
• social supports

Acknowledgements

The author thanks everyone who voluntarily wanted to participate in this study, sharing their stories with me. I also thank the Municipality of San Juan de la Costa and the Municipal Health Corporation of Quinchao for helping me contact the participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) Chile, through the National Doctorate Grant 21180221.