Technology, selfhood and physical disability

Much has been written in recent times of the interface between technologies and the human body. The vast majority of this literature, however, focuses on a body that is assumed to be free of physical disability. This article seeks to address this lacuna by presenting findings from an exploratory study using in-depth interviews with fifteen people with physical disabilities living in the Australian city of Adelaide. The dominant research question was to explore the ways in which technologies contribute to the meanings and experiences of the lived body/self with disabilities. The data showed that the interviewees identified several technologies that they used as highly beneficial to allowing them to transcend some aspects of their disabilities. However, the interviewees also identified significant negative aspects to the use of some technologies. They noted that such technologies could serve to mark out people with disabilities as ‘different’ or ‘lacking’, acting as a barrier to the achievement and presentation of their preferred body/self.