A Different Story: Narrative Allyship across Ability
Disability Alliances and Allies
ISBN: 978-1-83909-322-7, eISBN: 978-1-83909-321-0
Publication date: 9 November 2020
Abstract
Purpose: This chapter proposes narrative allyship across ability as a practice in which nondisabled researchers work with disabled nonresearchers to co-construct a process that centers and acts on the knowledge contained in and expressed by the lived experience of the disabled nonresearchers. This chapter situates narrative allyship across ability in the landscape of other participatory research practices, with a particular focus on oral history as a social justice praxis.
Approach: In order to explore the potential of this practice, the author outlines and reflects on both the methodology of her oral history graduate thesis work, a narrative project with self-advocates with Down syndrome, and includes and analyzes reflections about narrative allyship from a self-advocate with Down syndrome.
Findings: The author proposes three guiding principles for research as narrative allyship across ability, namely that such research further the interests of narrators as the narrators define them, optimize the autonomy of narrators, and tell stories with, instead of about, narrators.
Implications: This chapter suggests the promise of research praxis as a form of allyship: redressing inequality by addressing power, acknowledging expertise in subjugated knowledges, and connecting research practices to desires for social change or political outcomes. The author models methods by which others might include in their research narrative work across ability and demonstrates the particular value of knowledge produced when researchers attend to the lived expertise of those with disabilities. The practice of narrative allyship across ability has the potential to bring a wide range of experiences and modes of expression into the domains of research, history, policy, and culture that would otherwise exclude them.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
I want to express my gratitude to the narrators who participated in my graduate oral history project, John Anton, Claire Bible, Chris Burke, David Egan, Mitchell Levitz, and Sara Wolff, and to the “carers,” the friends, family members, and organizations, who helped me connect with these self-advocates in the first place. I am also grateful to those who supported me throughout my thesis process. I owe much to my peers and professors at Columbia, including my advisor Rachel Adams and our colleagues in the Future of Disability Studies Group at the Center for the Study of Social Difference, whom I had the privilege of learning from and thinking alongside as a graduate fellow in 2012–2013. Mary Marshall Clark's support has always been critical to my work. Amy Starecheski's early enthusiasm for this project spurred me on in crucial ways, and she has continued to afford me space to ask the broader questions raised by this work, including several opportunities to present as part of OHMA's Paul F. Lazarsfeld lecture series. My peers at OHMA listened to me patiently and endured early drafts of my thesis work. Marsha Hurst's Illness and Disability Narratives course in the Narrative Medicine program at Columbia greatly influenced my work on my thesis project and beyond. I have benefitted from rich and enriching conversations with Noelle McCormack, whose narrative work with people with profound and multiple learning disabilities points the way forward. I have been in dialogue since 2013 with Lisa Sonneborn, Direct of Media Arts and Culture at Temple University's Institute on Disabilities, and her support, guidance, imaginative rigor, and bravery are sources of inspiration and critical supports to my own thinking and work. I have profound gratitude to all whose labor and love give me time to work, reflect, and write, including my son's teachers, therapists, and caregiver, and my network of family and friends. Finally, thank you to my sons, Jackson, who made me a mother, and Jonah, who transformed me into this one.
Citation
Pombier, N. (2020), "A Different Story: Narrative Allyship across Ability", Carey, A.C., Ostrove, J.M. and Fannon, T. (Ed.) Disability Alliances and Allies (Research in Social Science and Disability, Vol. 12), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 225-257. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-354720200000012014
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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