Contested identity: The negotiation of disabled lives

In this research, I center the voices of adults who identify as disabled to generate new ways of defining and theorizing disability and disabled identity. Existing models of disability – the medical and social models of disability – continue to fail to consider the lived experience of disability. I contend this is because they were developed within ableist norms and need correction. Data were collected from semi-structured qualitative interviews that focused on participants’ development of disabled identity, experiences with passing, disclosure, and discrimination related to their disability/s. Guided by Critical Disabilities Studies, I use Borderlands Theory to explore how disabled people make sense of living with disability in dominant ableist culture. From these findings, I consider how current theorization and models of disability contribute to the stigmatization of disability.