Uppeldi og menntun - 01.07.2014, Page 90

Uppeldi og menntUn/icelandic JoUrnal of edUcation 23(2) 201490
Behind the qUest for tales, stories and liVes
construct their realities, and the impact that the construction of mental retardation as
a label has on these realities’ (Klotz, 2004, p. 97).
These colleagues from the USA have influenced work in the UK as well as in Ice-
land. Although autobiography is quite popular in Icelandic society and central to the
culture, narrative research with people with intellectual disabilities is relatively new
with a growing number of researchers taking up collaborative narrative research pro-
jects with groups and individuals with intellectual disabilities. These projects include
stories of parents with intellectual disabilities and their adult children (Sigurjónsdóttir,
2005; Sigurjónsdóttir & Traustadóttir, 2001) and narratives of people who lived for a
long period of time in institutions for people with intellectual disabilities, but now live
in mainstream society (Stefánsdóttir, 2008, 2010) and young adults who belong to the
integration generation (Björnsdóttir, 2009).
In the UK, there have been many examples of narrative work with people with in-
tellectual disabilities. The stories that people with physical impairments have written
about disability from their own perspective as well as the accounts of people with
intellectual disabilities have clarified the socially constructed nature of disability (e.g.,
Cheston, 1994; Deacon, 1974; Hunt, 1967; Oswin, 1991; Potts & Fido, 1991). The narra-
tive approach employed by British scholars, such as Atkinson (1997) and Booth and
Booth (1994, 1998a, 1998b) has gained much attention and has informed later work in
this area (e.g. Goodley; 2000; Jahoda, Wilson, Starker & Cairney, 2010; Tilley, Walmsley,
Earle & Atkinson, 2012).
There is a growing emphasis on equalization of power relationships and collab-
oration between people with intellectual disabilities and non-disabled researchers
(e.g., Björnsdóttir & Svensdóttir, 2008; Boxall, Carson & Docherty, 2004; Docherty,
Hughes, Phillips, Corbett, Regan, Barber et al., 2005; Hreinsdóttir, Stefánsdóttir,
Lewthwaite, Ledger & Shufflebotham, 2006; McDonald & Kidney, 2012; Roets &
Goedgeluck, 2007; Stefánsdóttir, 2008; Stefánsdóttir & Hreinsdóttir, 2013). This par-
ticipatory approach values people with intellectual disabilities as collaborators or
co-researchers and has strong ties to the disabled people’s movement and the overall
development of the field of disability (Walmsley, 2001).
fiVE stOriEs BEHinD tHE QUEst fOr tAlEs AnD liVEs
In the following, we present five stories that have emerged from our narrative
research practices. In several research projects with people with intellectual disabili-
ties we have gathered narrative material through interviews and participant observa-
tions in various social activities, such as in self-advocacy groups, personal events, and
leisure activities. We have constructed these narratives in collaboration with the nar-
rators and most of the analysis has been done through conversations with each collab-
orator. By spending considerable amount of time with our collaborators we were able
to become familiar with their values and more aware and sensitive to their wishes.
But we also became aware of our interpretations and (sometimes) presumptions and
the inclusive quality of our research made it possible for our collaborators to influence
our research practices.