The ‘locked door’ of neurological rehabilitation: using life histories to capture the complexity of rehabilitation following acquired brain injury Jonathan Harvey The Open University

Format ► Part auto/biographical ► Part ethnographic ► Semi-structured interviews ► Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and Stroke survivors

Sudden onset neurological ‘injuries’ ► Acquired brain injury, spinal cord injury etc. ► NOT progressive neurological pathologies such as MS, motor neurone disease, dementia etc.

Life histories ► Semi-structured interviews ► Long-term focus ► Voluntary organisations ► Volunteering - seen as an ‘ally’ - enables assessment of capacity

Doors as Barriers for disabled people ► Not just abstract. ► Locked doors are found throughout neuro- rehab units. ► Represent and reinforce limits of disabled bodies (Barton and Oliver 1997; Barnes, Mercer and Shakespeare 1999; Tregaskis 2001; or many other social model accounts) -Medical gaze -Us versus them

Analysis – ‘Emancipation’ ► Much disability research driven by need to be ‘emancipatory’ (Barnes 2002;2003) ► Who the hell am I?

Analysis - ‘biopower’? ► Constantly under observation of medical ‘experts’. ► Activity restricted, monitored and reviewed by others. ► ‘ the acts, behaviours, and practises that emerge as “problematizations” [such as disability] within certain networks of knowledge are dynamically linked to forms of power that turn individuals into subjects by tying them to identities’ (Tremain 2005: 14)

► Can this surveillance be escaped? ► Does this underestimate disabled people? (Davis 2010; Hughes 2005; 2007) (Davis 2010; Hughes 2005; 2007)

Analysis - Fluidity ► Remain open to engage with data ► Growth and change (Deleuze and Guattari 1987/2004) - Rhizome - Rhizome ► Nomadism (Braidotti 1991; 2003; 2006; 2011) - Figurative - fluidity - Figurative - fluidity

Is the locked door of neurological rehabilitation escapable? ► Fluidity could help to escape negative conceptualisation ► Time – future destiny? ► Community rehabilitation ► Social re-integration ► Extent of professional gaze ► Individual choice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

References ► Barton,L and Oliver,M (1997) Introduction: The Birth of Disability Studies’ in Barton,L and Oliver,M ‘Disability Studies: Past, Present and Future’ Leeds, The Disability Press. ► Barnes,C (2002) ‘Emancipatory disability research: project or process?’ Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs 2 (1), ► Barnes,C (2003) ‘What a difference a decade makes: reflections on doing emancipatory disability research’ Disability and Society 18 (1), ► Barnes,C, Mercer,G and Shakespeare,T (1999) ‘Exploring Disability, A Sociological Introduction’ London, Polity Press. ► Braidotti,R (1991) ‘Patterns of Dissonance: A study of women in contemporary philosophy’ Cambridge, Polity Press. ► Braidotti,R (2003) ‘Becoming woman: Or sexual difference revisited’ Theory, Culture and Society 20 (3), 43–64. ► Braidotti,R (2006) ‘Transpositions. On nomadic ethics’ Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. ► Braidotti,R (2011) (2nd ed) ‘Nomadic subjects: embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory’ Chichester, Columbia University Press. ► Davis,L,J (2010) ‘The End of Identity Politics: On Disability As an Unstable Category’ in (3rd ed) ‘The Disability Studies Reader’ Oxon, Routledge. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1987) (reprinted 2004) ‘A thousand plateaus:Capitalism and schizophrenia.’ London, Continuum. ► Hughes,B (2005) ‘What Can a Foucauldian Analysis Contribute to Disibility Theory?’ in Tremain,S ‘Foucault and the Government of Disability’ University of Michigan, University of Michigan Press. ► Hughes,B (2007) ‘Being Disabled: Toward a Critical Social Ontology for Disability Studies’ Disability & Society 22 (7) ► Tregaskis,C (2002) ‘Social Model Theory: the story so far...’ Disability and Society 17(4), ► Tremain,S (2005) ‘Foucault, Governmentality and Critical Disability Theory’ in Temain,S ‘Foucault and the Government of Disability’ University of Michigan, University of Michigan Press.