Navigating the Terrain of Dis/Ability: An Autoethnographic Cartography
In: Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, Band 8, Heft 4, S. 321-345
ISSN: 1929-9192
Through my lens as an adult educator with non-apparent dis/abilities, this paper has been constructed as an autoethnographic cartography in the lived experience of a dis/ability paradigm. Like a navigational pelorus used to sustain a vessel's bearing at sea, the relative fluidity of my dis/abled identity, lost and found, has been charted against encounters and relapses of stroke and mental illness. Drawing from personal dis/ability narratives, I illustrate how I captured and studied the familiar yet unaccustomed geography of my body's dis/abling experiences. I describe how the use of visually captivating, artistic underwater photographs of feminine bodies—strong—sensual—alive, and reminiscent of my embodied experiences, serve not only as visual representations of my dis/ability, but as entry points into the messy process of textualizing dis/ability experiences.