Disability in Narrative Inquiry: A Case of Methodologically Unusable Data from a Participant with Intellectual Disability

Abstract

This paper considers methodological and ethical implications of qualitative interview data deemed unusable for research analytic purposes because the interviewee had an intellectual disability. Critical disability studies theory is used to reimagine the utility of one case of so-called unusable qualitative data. Excerpts from this qualitative data that came from a pilot study interview of a PhD project are full of possibility for learning. Yet, among conclusions drawn, rhetoric about disability inclusion appears undermined by ableist normativity. Specifically, the problems associated with valuing abled ways of speaking within wider narrative research and scholarship will be the focus of this article.