On How I Got Through COVID-19 Lockdown: An Autoethnographic Approach to Resilience in Disability

Abstract

I explore how I—a person born with a physical disability living alone in a foreign country—was able to cope with COVID-19 lockdown. I used the autoethnographic method (Chang, 2016) to scrutinize sources of my resilience. Through evocative autoethnography, I reviewed risks/coping strategies recalling the lessons drawn from my childhood in the care of two supportive women. Then, performing analytical autoethnography, I self-assessed my lived experiences through a social science lens. A theoretical validation of my personal story helped me to acknowledge how resilience in my life had been built and was mobilized in the face of the pandemic.

Keywords

autoethnography resilience disability emancipatory research COVID-19

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Afifi

Merrill

Davis

(2016). The theory of resilience and relational load. Personal Relationships, 23, 663–683.

Afifi

W. A.

(2020). Uncertainty before, during, and after COVID: Uneven distribution, impact, and management (CARE COVID-19 Lecture Series). https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2473612486270489

Afifi

W. A.

Afifi

T. D.

(2021). Uncertainty and coping during COVID-19. In Lewis

Govender

Holland

(Eds.), Communicating COVID-19 (pp. 325–344). Palgrave Macmillan.

Arstein-Kerslake

Maker

Flynn

Ward

Bell

Degener

(2020). Introducing a human rights-based disability research methodology. Human Rights Law Review, 20(3), 412–432.

Barnes

(2004). Emancipatory’ disability research: Project or process? Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-3802.2002.00157.x

Barnes

Mercer

(Ed.). (1997). Doing disability research. The Disability Press.

Berger

R. J.

(2016). Disability and life history research. An autoethnography of qualitative inquiry. International Review of Qualitative Research, 9(4), 472–488.

Bowes

Jaffee

S. R.

(2013). Biology, genes, and resilience: Toward a multidisciplinary approach. Trauma, Violence and Abuse, 14(3), 195–208.

Boyle

C. A.

Fox

M. H.

Havercamp

Zubler

(2020). The public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic for people with disabilities. Disability and Health Journal, 13, 100943.

10.

Carver

(1998). Resilience and thriving: Issues, models and linkages. Journal of Social Issues, 54, 245–266.

11.

Cavanagh

(2019). Theoretically speaking an autoethnographic journey in crossing disciplines to being-becoming a practical scholar. African Journal of Inter/multidisciplinary Studies, 1(1), 1–12.

12.

Chakraborty

(2020). Social inequities in the distribution of COVID-19: An intra-categorical analysis of people with disabilities in the U.S. Disability and Health Journal, 14, 101007.

13.

Chang

(2016). Autoethnography as method. Routledge.

14.

Chou

Y. C.

Chen

B. W.

Kröger

(2021). Lost in translation: Implementing personal assistance in an East Asian context. Disability & Society, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2021.1930517

15.

Csikszentmihalyi

Nakamura

(2011). Positive psychology: Where did it come from, where is it going?. In Sheldon

K. M.

Kashdan

T. B.

Steger

M. F.

(Eds.), Designing positive psychology: Taking stock and moving forward (pp. 3–8). Oxford University Press.

16.

Dunn

Uswatte

Elliot

T. R.

(2012). Happiness, resilience, and positive growth following physical disability: Issues for understanding, research, and therapeutic intervention. In Lopez

S. J.

Snyder

C. R.

(Eds.), The Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed., pp. 651–664). Oxford University Press.

17.

Ellis

Adams

T. E.

Bochner

A. P.

(2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Historical Social Research, 36(4), 273–290.

18.

European Disability Forum. (2020). Resolution on COVID 19 and the rights of persons with disabilities. European Disability Forum.

19.

Feeney

B. C.

Collins

(2014). A new look at social support: A theoretical perspective on thriving through relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 47, 1–35.

20.

Fergus

Zimmerman

M. A.

(2005). Adolescent resilience: A framework for understanding healthy development in the face of risk. Annual Review of Public Health, 26, 399–419.

21.

Fletcher

Sarkar

(2013). Psychological resilience: A Review and Critique of Definitions, Concepts and Theory. European Psychologist, 18, 12–23.

22.

Fredrickson

B. L.

(2004). The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions. Philosophical Transactions Series B, the Royal Society Publishing.

23.

Green

R. R.

(2002). Resilience. Theory and research for social work practice. NASW Press.

24.

Hall

K. A. E.

Deusdad

D’Hers Del Pozo

Martínez-Hernáez

. (2022). How Did People with Functional Disability Experience the first COVID-19 lockdown? A thematic analysis of YouTube comments. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19, 10550.

25.

Hoge

(2008). Evaluating lifeworld as an emancipatory methodology. Disability & Society, 23(1), 29–40.

26.

Holman Jones

Adams

T. E.

Ellis

. (2013). Handbook of autoethnography. Routledge.

27.

Hornor

(2017). Resilience. Journal of Pediatric Health Care, 31(3), 384–390.

28.

Jalali

Shahabi

Lankarani

K. B.

Kamali

Mojgani

(2020). COVID-19 and disabled people: Perspectives from Iran. Disability & Society, 35, 844–847.

29.

Kendall

Marshall

C. A.

Barlow

(2013). Stories rather than surveys: A journey of discovery and emancipation. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 12(1), 258–271.

30.

Ledesma

(2014). Conceptual frameworks and research models on resilience in leadership. SAGE Open, 4(3), 1–8.

31.

Lund

E. M.

Ayers

K. B.

(2020). Raising awareness of disabled lives and health care rationing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 12(S1), S210–S211.

32.

Luthar

S. S.

Cicchetti

Becker

(2000). The construct of resilience: A critical evaluation and guidelines for future work. Child Development, 71, 543–562.

33.

Luthar

S. S.

Sawyer

J. A.

Brown

P. J.

(2006). Conceptual issues in studies of resilience: Past, present, and future research. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1094(1), 105–115.

34.

Oliver

(1997). Emancipatory research: Realistic goal or impossible dream?. In Barnes

Mercer

(Eds.), Doing disability research (pp. 15–31). The Disability Press.

35.

Oliver

(2004). The social model in action: If I had a hammer. . . In Barnes

Mercer

(Eds.), Implementing the social model of disability: Theory and research (pp. 18–31). The Disability Press.

36.

Park

Fenster

(2004). Stress-related growth: Predictors of occurrence and correlates with psychological adjustment. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23, 195–215.

37.

Rutter

(2006). Implications of resilience concepts for scientific understanding. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1094, 1–12.

38.

Sabatello

Landes

S. D.

McDonald

K. E.

(2020). People with disabilities in COVID-19: Fixing our priorities. American Journal of Bioethics, 20(7), 187–190.

39.

Snyder

M. M.

(2015). Leaning into autoethnography: A review of Heewon Chang’s autoethnography as a method. The Qualitative Report, 20(2), 93–96.

40.

Solomon

Wynia

Lawrence

O. G.

(2020). COVID-19 crisis triage—Optimizing health outcomes and disability rights. The New England Journal of Medicine, 383, E27.