In Their Own Voices

Abstract

Individuals with disabilities continue to experience exclusion from mainstream contexts amid stereotypical constructions of disability as an inferior status. To address these inequities, we contend that the ramifications for both theory and praxis in disability research rests heavily on the way in which disability is theorized. In this article, we draw on the findings of a narrative inquiry as a context to frame an alternative theoretical model for disability research at both individual and social levels. We propose the efficacy of an integrated theoretical approach using the vehicle of narrative inquiry to present alternative stories by individuals with disabilities themselves. In alignment with a poststructuralist epistemology, we propose the addition of Lacanian psychoanalysis to address the construct of internalized oppression felt at an individual psychological level. We conclude that the epistemological and ontological lens through which research is conceptualized has the power either to subjugate or to emancipate individual experience.