THE DISABLED AND THEIR EVERYDAY LIFE EXPERINCES IN IRANIAN CULTURE

Year 2012, Volume: 4 Issue: 1, 175 - 184, 01.06.2012

Hamid Ebadollahi Chanzanagh Akbar Piri Elham Abbaszadeh Garjan

Abstract

Like the disabled in other cultures, Iranian disabled confront numerous difficulties
in their everyday life. They are constantly rejected in different fields of social life
by Iranian culture, and as a result Iranian disabled find themselves in an
inappropriate cultural /social circumstance. This research is focused on Iranian
disabled and host culture in one of northern Iranian provinces, Gilan (Rasht city)
to explain living experiences of Iranian disabled as abandoned individuals in
Iranian culture. This research’s theoretical approach is Erving Goffman’s
“Stigma” theory applied on eight disables. Samples included four men and four
women, single and aged from 28 to 45. They were exposed to be stigmatized for
their physical disabilities. In this study “Autobiography” method has been used to
give samples chance of speaking about themselves and their experiences in their
everyday life. The participants have been profoundly interviewed. Results
demonstrated that Iranian culture has patriarchal characteristics and that is why
the patriarchal culture plays a key role in defining disabled by the society and by themselves. The presence of patriarchal characteristics of host culture shows itself
as impassable obstacles concerning work and marriage in host society. These
obstacles are constantly constructed through media and social stigmatizing actions
(labeling, joshing, gagging, fooling, piteous looking and talking) as well as
objective factors (particularly physical obstacles of disabled participation in their
social everyday life) which contributes to perceiving “Otherness” by Iranian
disabled.

Keywords

The disabled, Stigma, Social Construction of Disability, Iranian Patriarchal Culture, Experience of Disability

References

• Ablon, Joan (2002), “The Nature of Stigma and Medical Condition”, Epilepsy & Behavior, No. 3, pp. S2-S9.
• Dovey, Kenneth A and Joseph H Graffam (1994), The experience of disability: Social construction and imposed limitation, Geelong: Deakin University Press.
• Goffman Erving (1963), Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, New York: Simon & Schuster.
• King, James Michael (2004), Dynamics of Concealed Disabilities among Students at a Major Research University in a Rural Area, Unpublished PhD Dissertation, The faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia.
• Kleck, Robert, Hiroshi Ono and Albert Hastorf (1966), “The effects of physical deviance upon face-to-face interaction”, Human Relations, No.19, pp. 425-436.
• Lawrence, Bryan (1991), “Self-concept formation and physical handicap: Some educational implication for integration”, Disability, Handicap and Society, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 139–146.
• Phemister, Andrew A and Nancy M Crewe (2004), “Objective Self-Awareness and Stigma: Implications for Persons with Visible Disabilities”, Journal of Rehabilitation, Vol. 70, No. 2, pp. 33-37. Stone, Sharon Dale (1995), “The myth of bodily perfection”, Disability and Society, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 413–424.
• Susman, Joan (1994), “Disability, Stigma and Deviance”, Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 38, No.1, pp. 15-22.
• Thomson, Rosemarie Garland (1997), Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature, New York: Columbia University Press.