Inclusion through Discourse

Abstract

In this chapter, I address the relationship between language and disability, an important, yet underexamined connection in both disability studies and discourse analysis. I do so by exploring the discursive strategies used by Yahya and two of his caregivers. It is through these strategies that they interactively achieve processes of inclusion and exclusion. In Chapters 3 and 4, I scrutinized at a broader level how Yahya exercises agency and ultimately creates inclusion with his family and society through computer-related actions and hypothetical narratives. In addition to problematizing the boundaries between social actors and mediational means, I have illustrated how Yahya’s agency in practice is intertwined with and emerges from distributed actions divided among multiple social actors. I now turn to examining the nature of this distribution further. I do so by extending Goffman’s (1981) production format roles and applying them to the analysis of a conjoint action— the rewriting of a letter that was originally written by Yahya to the mayor of his hometown requesting his approval for the permit allowing Yahya to hire his own resident assistants. This incident takes place after I agree to help Yahya’s mission to own the resident assistant permit. The findings of this chapter demonstrate the active role that one individual with a disability plays in claiming power over emerging discourse, and in interactively negotiating his role in the conjoint action that would grant him some form of control over in important area of his life.