Inquiry cantos: poetics of developmental disability.
Postmodern thought is increasingly critical of foundations central to modern, positivist research into the lives of people labeled as having so-called developmental disabilities and mental retardation. This approach has brought about changes in how developmental disability is both understood and, ultimately, created. Responding to what has been called the postmodern turn, some disability studies scholars are choosing to represent their work in alternative textual formats, including poetry and fiction. These texts, representing multiple subjectivities, offer ways to explicate, problematize, and reconstruct new ways of understanding so-called developmental disability that are complex and plural. Examples of alternative research texts are provided from a recent qualitative research project with self-advocates and their construction of choice, control, and power.
Smith
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Vermont Self-Determination Project, Weeks Building, 103 S. Main St., Waterbury, VT 05641, USA. psmith@ddmhs.state.vt.us
D002648:Child; D002658:Developmental Disabilities; D006801:Humans; D009626:Terminology as Topic