A wise friend told me to stick to the facts, so that is what I will try to do to sell
this paper and have the opportunity to develop it and make it part of the body of public
work. (I have never shied away from the notion of being part of the community playing
with ideas.) It is not often that we come across individuals with disabilities who have
been particularly attuned to the “how” and “why” of interaction for an extended period of
time, and who also became social theorists (I equate theory and methods) not so much out
of want, but out of survival. I represent some of these people. When we speak of
Disability and Social Life specifically, and perhaps more importantly, Public Sociologies
in general, I feel called to make a contribution in a public way. Disability can be
simultaneously enabling and disabling. The unpredictable, chronic and progressive
neurological disorder I have, which allowed me access to nearly 15 years of in-depth
social psychological research surrounding manifestations of disability in public life, may
also prevent me from sharing the yield of my studies with others in an immediate way.
The way I view the lived experiences of disability are that they are variations in
experience that tend to expose individuals to more extreme states of existence, but that
these are, at root, variations that catalyze alternative perspectives for understanding social
life. Therefore, they are not necessarily more or less valuable than other states of being,
but are in addition to them. This view has been developed through direct experience with
a chronic and progressive neurological disorder, coupled with loss of hearing, and my
continually changing physical condition, as well as variations in my appearance which
have had profound impacts on the manner in which social interaction unfolds. What is
rather unique about my situation in life is that the age of onset of symptoms began when I
was 15, and so I have the benefit of having been “the other” to “the other” from both ends
Convention