A Family Narration of Disability Experience in Iran
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Keywords
disability, family, Iran
Abstract
Focusing on Mohsen Hosseini Taha, a person with cerebral palsy, and his family, this research explores the social and mental consequences of having a member with physical disability on a typical Iranian family. The oral narratives used in this research have been collected in a series of in-depth interviews with Mohsen, his parents, and his only sister, in 4 sessions or 10 hours of face-to-face interviews. The analysis of the interviews addresses several questions: How was Mohsen’s disability initially diagnosed and what were his parents’ first reactions? What have been the social obstacles facing Mohsen’s family’s efforts to practice a routine life within Iranian society? How has Mohsen’s disability affected his family’s life socially and mentally throughout the years? Finally, how well do core concepts of Western disability studies apply within a typical non-western family? The real names of the participants have been used with their permission.
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Retrieved from http://www.behzisti.ir/News/Show.aspx?id=22336
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Negin H. Goodrich, Purdue University, Calumet
Negin H. Goodrich is a journalist, author and disability researcher from Iran, living in the United States since 2010. As a journalist and a (previous) PhD candidate in Communication, she has devoted more than 15 years of her professional and academic activities to disability issues. Attending three Paralympic games: Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012, she has written two books and tens of articles on the event. Negin has been a visiting scholar at the Center for Global Studies at Purdue University, Calumet from 2010 to 2012. She is now working on a book (in Farsi language) to introduce Disability Studies to her native country, where, as she claims, there is little awareness on this growing subject.