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dc.contributor.authorRhodes, P.J.*
dc.contributor.authorSmall, Neil A.*
dc.contributor.authorIsmail, Hanif*
dc.contributor.authorWright, J.*
dc.date.accessioned2015-01-06T15:40:38Z
dc.date.available2015-01-06T15:40:38Z
dc.date.issued2008
dc.identifier.citationRhodes PJ, Small NA, Ismail H et al (2008) 'What really annoys me is people take it like it's a disability'. Epilepsy, disability and identity among people of Pakistani origin living in the UK. Ethnicity and Health. 13(1): 1-21.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10454/7049
dc.descriptionNo
dc.description.abstractThis paper reports on a study of Pakistani people with epilepsy. It explores their attitudes towards their condition, others’ attitudes, its impact on their lives, and the extent to which they considered themselves as disabled. Epilepsy was variously interpreted within biomedical, folk and religious paradigms. In line with popular understandings, participants associated disability with stable, permanent and visible physical impairments and did not consider themselves as disabled. However, they also recognised a social dimension to their experience. Much of the distress and disadvantage they experienced was socially determined, both through direct prejudice and discrimination, and indirectly through a fear of others’ negative reactions. However, the invisible and unpredictable nature of epilepsy meant that they could conceal their condition and thereby mitigate its social effects. ‘Disability’ was not experienced as a static and permanent state but as a potential identity that was both contingent and contested. The literature portrays people moving from biomedical to social interpretations of disability. However, the tensions experienced by people in the study were more between competing religious interpretations of their condition and, to some extent, between religious and medical approaches. Conceptions of disability, which are presented in the literature as antagonistic and mutually exclusive, were experienced as different dimensions reflecting the complexity of experience. The paper concludes by suggesting that for many people, for whom disability is an ambiguous, contingent and contested identity, public self-identification as disabled is an unrealistic goal. Rather than conceiving of disability as primarily physical or primarily social, it would be better construed as a complex interweaving of multiple factors—physical, environmental, socio-cultural and psychological factors.
dc.language.isoenen
dc.subjectDisability
dc.subjectPakistani
dc.subjectIdentity
dc.subjectEpilepsy
dc.title'What really annoys me is people take it like it's a disability'. Epilepsy, disability and identity among people of Pakistani origin living in the UK
dc.status.refereedYes
dc.date.application2008-06-08
dc.typeArticle
dc.type.versionNo full-text in the repository
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1080/13557850701803031
dc.openaccess.statusclosedAccess


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