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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 878

Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)

In the Face of Blindness: Over/Accommodation of Disability and the Discursive Construction of Agency and Independence

Authors: Everts, Elisa L.
Submitted by: Everts, Elisa L. (Georgetown University, United States of America)

HELP (NOT) WANTED- Over-accommodation in interability discourse is one of the most difficult interactional phenomena a person with a disability faces. This is complicated by the fact that the performance of the identity "competent, independent self" in public (or even in private) depends in part upon the collaboration of “abled” others at the scene. Moreover, when the disability in point is blindness, such a collaborative performance is complicated even further by the absence of gaze as a resource for negotiating such delicate interactions, precisely the channel and mode upon which sighted people most rely in such circumstances.

Frame (2003), herself visually impaired, uses Goffman’s (1963) original terminology whe she points out that there are several ways a blind person’s performance of the competent self can be “spoiled.” She may first of all spoil it herself without any collaboration from others by literally failing to perform competently (e.g., not greeting an acquaintance, not shaking hands with a person whose hand is extended, stumbling, or not entering the crosswalk at the right time). In such cases, blindness itself is the cause of face loss. However, other parties also contribute to one’s performance in public. Assistance offered by well-meaning others is, on its face, an act of positive politeness, but even when successful and desired, it can only occur at the cost of negative face as per Bateson’s (1972) double bind. Assistance not only puts the abled other in a position of “power” over the “assisted,” it also draws attention to her, thus violating her right to “civil inattention,” to simply blend in with everyone else. When help is not desired, but is forced upon the person, it not only causes a graver violation of face, but can actually create more trouble (and even danger!) for the blind person than it alleviates, further compromising her presentation of competence, and further violating her negative face. Finally, one seemingly innocuous way of spoiling (or at least besmirching) the performance of a person with a disability is to point out how well they achieved some ordinary feat using alternate, less ordinary means from those which are commonly used.

Although people who are visually impaired do work with a restricted set of modes as resources for interaction, they have a rich cache of discourse strategies at their disposal for exercising agency in managing their interactions, relationships, and identities more to their own satisfaction--constructing more independent identities and more symmetrical relationships. In this paper, I analyze the discourse of a (once-sighted) blind woman in interaction with sighted others and present a number of successful strategies she employs to bring the balance of positive and negative face needs to a desirable equilibrium, establishing both independence and involvement (Tannen 1984). These strategies include demonstrations of competence, displays of knowledge, acts of helping others, rejections and negative assessment of unwanted help, and direct discursive contradictions of attributions of powerlessness. While these strategies are presented in the context of blind/sighted interaction, they are relevant to anyone facing attributions of powerlessness.