“A Girl Who Liked to Dance”: Life Experiences of Russian Women with Motor Impairments

Ch. 6. P. 104–124.

Iarskaia-Smirnova E. R.

Apart from the public sphere and the norms set by society, the private sphere plays an important role in the lives of the disabled, including the personal experience of disability at a micro level: in their families, everyday routines and romantic relationships. In this chapter, issues of family structure are considered using a narrative analysis of interviews with women who use wheelchairs. Various cultural, social, economic and political determinants effect the formation of certain types of family structure and attitudes towards family life. At the same time, they interrelate with biographical factors that reinforce or weaken the limits of freedom and private life. Using narrative analysis, I demonstrate what role family plays in constructing the identity of a person with a disability, and how family members act as coauthors of individual biographies. This can be seen in those dilemmas of family life associated with the feelings, sexuality and emotional stability at the micro-level of the life experience and identification of women with disabilities.

Keywords: женщины, семья, биография, гендер, family, инвалидность, gender, narrative analysis, нарративный анализ, women, благополучие, biography, disability, wheel-chair, инвалидное кресло, welfare

In book

Gazing at Welfare, Gender and Agency in Post-socialist Countries

Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.