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Abstract

This article struggles with the complications of a researcher claiming insider status in an analysis of physically disabled professionals’ narratives as performance of identity when some participants actively resist the idea that the researcher can access their experiences through her body that is more or less disabled than theirs. Through applying reflexive autoethnographic techniques the researcher interweaves stories from her past with the stories of three participants who compared their bodies to her own: one who identifies herself more disabled, one who identifies herself as less, and one who co-indentifies as having a similar embodied experience. The researcher explores the potential consequences of claiming “insider status” in qualitative research and how her body (noticeably disabled, but not requiring accommodation and often passing for an athletic injury), allows her privileges that can further marginalize those with more physical challenges and those who need accommodations but can pass for able-bodied.

Keywords

disability passing personal narrative autoethnography performance studies

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Problematizing a Researcher’s Performance of “Insider Status”

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