On Being a Zebra: Negotiating a Professional Identity Whilst Coping With a Rare and Recurrent Illness

Abstract

In this autoethnography I discuss some of the impacts of a chronic and long -term illness on my professional identity of a professor. I examine issues of lack of control throughout the discussion. I also discuss the contribution of phenomenological accounts in the form of autoethnography in serving to challenge society’s view of disability. I suggest the individual intersection of disability and identity demand that the scholarly community listen more to the stories of people who have actual experience of long-term chronic illness. In doing this, we may develop nuanced understandings of the impact of chronic long - term illness on the development on professional identity.