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Description
Every day we pass people without thinking everyone has a story. If an individual looks “normal,” any struggles faced living with an invisible disability are left without words or thoughts due to the dominant norm—ableism. Conversely, a more visible disability may not be dismissed as quickly. Who are unseen, ignored, and misunderstood are those who live with invisible disabilities not only in a dominant able-bodied society, but also within academic scholarship as well, because they do not fit into the dominant definition of disability. In turn, binaries form between power relations and within knowledge production that create exclusion. This thesis is an intersectional analysis on expanding the definition of disability, specifically invisible disability, in order to deconstruct, challenge, and transform the hegemonic conceptualization of disability and break binaries in order to give voice to ignored and misunderstood narratives of invisible disabilities as well as foster and create nuanced understanding within knowledge production and power itself. I particularly use an autoethnographic approach to conduct this analysis of my own everyday, lived experience as a young, mixed race woman living with an invisible disability, or chronic illness, on how ableism operates in the medical sphere and at the academy, further exploring what it means to be a “good” or “bad” chronic illness patient and categorized and labeled by the stigmas attached to the definition of disability.
ContributorsGarcia, Jordan Marie (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis director) / Watrous, Lisa (Committee member) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05