The above outlines some of the physical practices I employed to organise data. As is the case with ethnographic research, analysis was happening from day one (Charmaz, 2000; Tedlock, 2000). I used my research diary to both generate and analyse data (Richardson, 1998). Similarly to Wickenden’s (2010, 98) research, my analysis was very much “an iterative and inductive process, where issues gradually emerged from what the young people did and told me and my reflections on this.” Claiming I took an inductive
154 approach to research, however, is not to say I was not influenced by “a desire to see certain phenomena” (Goodley, 1999, 33). As I argued earlier, my research grows out of my discontent at the unjust treatment of young and disabled people in neoliberal Britain. It attempts to tap into the “creative imaginings” of young disabled people, to think- through “how things might be better” (Sargisson, 2000, 3). If Section One was about me queer(y)ing, Section Two is about young disabled people cripping the world around us. In a review of McRuer’s Crip Theory (2006), Bennett (2007) writes that crip theory is “on the edge of queer and crip activism and social movements”. It is a statement I would be pleased to associate with my work with. I have made clear from the outset of my thesis that something feels very self-indulgent about doing a PhD, especially at a time when my friends and family are struggling to find work. Bridging my research with activism; listening to and taking seriously the ideas of young disabled people who are so often denied this, allows for some personal justification. I entered research, and therefore analysis, with an agenda.
According to Goodley and Lawthom (2005), in order to assess research around disability researchers are commonly asked about the analytical levels their work seeks out: “does research investigate politics, culture, society, relationships or the individual”? (cited in Goodley, 2011, 23). As I outlined above, The Best-Ever Future Worlds Project allowed me to move discussion from individual youth-adult transitions we are often presented with (see Chapter Two), to instead talk to young disabled people about their relationships to and with politics, culture and society. In employing the range of methods I outlined above I wanted to listen carefully to, try to understand and take seriously young disabled people’s actions, thoughts and feelings (Biklen, 2004). Analysis involved taking the stories and ideas of young disabled people and reflecting back over Section One to consider how and if data related to my earlier theorisations around youth and disability. In doing this analysis began to emerge on a number of levels.
Analytical Level
Description Example of data (and where used in analysis)
Data Collection
Subjective Stories individuals told me about themselves. Personal hopes and dreams for their individual futures.
Pause looks forward to a time she has the money and freedom to go to a nightclub (Chapter Six).
Recorded interviews. Conversations recorded in research diary (all fieldwork contexts).
‘Reports from the Future’ (Explore).
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Relational How young disabled people related to, were treated by and resisted the treatment of others around them. Included looking at networks of support and interdependence.
Relationships with PAs in Iceland (Chapter Seven)
Sooboo’s negotiations of the disablist attitudes which threaten to stifle his artwork in Explore (Chapter Six).
Recorded interviews. Conversations recorded in research diary (all fieldwork contexts).
Group discussions (futures workshops, YF).
Observations recorded in research diary (Explore). Economic
and material
How economic structures impact on young disabled people’s lives: both in terms of being a producer (finding work) and a consumer (access to the markets). Physical barriers in the lives of young disabled people.
Young people in first futures workshops at YF write of postcard to stay in the past: ‘disabled people getting a bad deal with jobs (because of bad attitudes)’ (Chapter Seven).
Group discussions (futures workshops, YF).
Photos (cameras workshop, YF).
Interviews (Colin).
Stories recorded in research diary (Iceland). Cultural How normative representations
of disability, youth, adulthood, and other intersecting identities (gender, sexuality, race, and so on) impact upon young disabled people.
Julia in Breaking through Limitations remarks “people don’t want to see a pregnant disabled woman” (Chapter Eight).
Individual stories told, conversations had, and interviews recorded (all fieldwork contexts).
Discussions arising from ‘Reports from the Future’ (Explore).
Observations (Explore).
Groups discussions (futures workshops, YF).
Discussions (Breaking through Limitations , Iceland).
Figure 15 Levels of analysis
As analysis was happening from the beginning of research (Charmaz, 2000; Tedlock, 2000) the above analytical levels began to emerge before I went to Iceland. However, spending time with young disabled people, especially to the extent I did in Iceland, made
156 me realise more than ever that as a non-disabled researcher I knew nothing about the levels of disablement in the lives of disabled youth (Goodley, 1999). I explain further in Chapter Seven that in the early stages of analysis I worried my queer(y)ing of adulthood in Section One was oppositional to some of the messages I was getting from young disabled people, striving to be included in normative discourse. Crip theory, according to Bennett (2007), is to CDS what queer theory is to LGBT politics. As explained in
Chapter Two, queer theory developed as a ‘binary breaker’, questioning the boxing in of ‘non-normative’ sexuality. CDS similarly questions binaries, disabled/non-disabled being one example. Both queer and crip, therefore, require an intersectional approach to
activism and academia. My work undoubtedly wanders, borrowing from other disciplines, and sometimes appearing to leave ‘youth’ and ‘disability’ to one-side in order to pursue a tangent. Yet, spending time with young disabled people brought me back down to earth; this wandering, leaving disability behind, was not so possible when you were stuck at home without assistance, or denied access to your friend’s gig (a story of Colin’s which I share in Chapter Seven). As Hughes et. al (2005, 14) put it: “[t]he ‘travellings’ and the liquid identities of people who live a ‘de-territorialised’, nomadic life (Deleuze & Guattari, 1986) will seem strange to disabled people with mobility and some sensory and communication impairments.” Identity political fights were part of the lives of those in YF and Iceland. It was important, therefore, to remember my
partisanship: beginning “firmly on the side of disabled people” (Goodley and Moore, 2000, 826). “Qualitative methods are impressionistic and unsystematic. […] Researchers may only see what they want to see” (Goodley, 2000, 64). Therefore, I validated my ideas with young disabled people throughout the continuous and iterative process of analysis (Zarb, 1992). Embla and Freyja were my main points of call to try ensure my analysis resonated with my young disabled participants.
I took with me to Iceland a whole host of ideas and analytical points that had arisen from UK data. I talked these through with Embla and Freyja. As argued above, my data, especially within my research diary, is unashamedly a narrative construction, formed by me, about my engagement with young disabled people (Charmaz, 2000; Denzin, 1998). As young women engaged in both CDS and identity political fights, however, Embla and Freyja helped me to understand the strategic importance of employing different
arguments at different times: sometimes arguing one’s place within normative discourse, whilst in more critical arenas (and when it was safe to do so), questioning the very discourse you were previously fighting to be part of (an argument I make throughout
157 analysis). Representing your friends, analysing their stories, and holding them up for public scrutiny it a daunting task, but one, on reflection, it was important for me to encounter. As Embla and Freyja (and also, perhaps Colin) would likely be present at, read, or hear later about ways in which I had presented their stories, I was careful to remain as close to the stories of participants as possible. With Embla and Freyja, I could not hide behind academic jargon and alienate them from their stories.