Accept me for who I am! : a critical ethnographic study of a participatory research project with people labeled mentally retarded.

Abstract

This dissertation is a critical ethnographic study of a participatory research project in which a group of eight adults labeled mentally retarded, with the assistance of two nondisabled adults, created and performed a musical theater production called Special. Special was produced as part of a participatory research process in which group members also interviewed friends, advocates of disabled people, and former residents of a local institution for people labeled retarded, in order to find out how ex-residents were treated once they were placed in community living situations. The information from these interviews, as well as accounts from group members\u27 own lives, comprised the content of Special. This study consists of two main parts--an interpretive section (Chapters 5 and 6), including emic and etic interpretations of group members\u27 experiences, and a critical section (Chapter 7), in which an internalized oppression framework is invoked to examine group members\u27 experiences. Three main findings of the study were: (1) that group members expressed a chronic problem orientation; (2) that group members exhibited a justice orientation; and (3) that group members were largely motivated by the drive to visibility, or the need to be seen, understood and accepted for who they really are. Another major finding of the study was that group members\u27 drive to visibility was not only a major motivation for doing the play, but was also a key to understanding much of their behavior--that when they felt visible, they acted up, or became positive and productive, and that when they felt invisible, they acted out, or became destructive, and even violent, evidence of internalized oppression in group members. Group members\u27 drive to visibility, coupled with their resistance to an identity of mental impairment, raises two important questions regarding the issue of social identity with people labeled retarded: (1) Are there reasons to believe that people labeled retarded can feel a sense of pride in who they are, both as individuals and as members of a social group? (2) If people labeled retarded cannot feel a sense of pride, what are their prospects of overcoming internalized oppression, and of working with one another as a group with an identity, a purpose, and a right to have power like all other groups