This study explores participants' experiences of tribalism in their lifeworlds over time through the lens of self-identity formations. The emergence of two self-identity trajectories, self-identity as DisAnden and self-identity as Able/Potential, is traced over time. The biographical, contextual and social forces that shape self-identity formations and the participants' actions in negotiating the tribe are elucidated.
However, the relative prominence of self-identity formation as DisAnden across cases in school years was evident. Chapter seven: Abstractions and explanatory constructions 241 7.1 Relationships between self-identity trajectories over time 242 7.2 Critical catalysts, decisive choices and changes over time 244 7.3 Social context and experience shaping 246.
LIST OF APPENDICES
NOTES ON TERMINOLOGY AND ABBREVIATIONS
PREFACE
I'm still trying to understand why I didn't initially question why 80% of the country's population wasn't receiving any of our professional services, why there were no black speech therapists, why we only provided therapy in English. After qualifying, I religiously performed the rituals of the profession's cultural practice and taught it to my students as if it were the ultimate truth, becoming a ventriloquist for an uncritical professional practice. In my experience, the client was usually willing to follow the expert professional's treatment regimen.
I focused on the disorder with marginal attempts to admit life's complexities as part of the clinical process. The dominant research tradition did not allow me to even think about the possibility that history and research could be connected.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE
Rationale for the study
In my opinion, the uncritical application of the medical model in the Speech-Language Pathology profession (henceforth referred to as the profession) has contributed to the sequestrations of life experience of the PWS at the clinical interface. The appropriation of the medical model in Speech-Language-Pathology practice can be understood as a political maneuver by the profession. The consequences of the medical influence in clinical practice are evident from the emphasis on symptomatic dimensions of fluency management that prevails in the literature.
Theorizing life experiences with PWS may be one of many avenues that contribute to such a theoretical foundation. Petrunik & Shearing (1983) extend this analysis by considering the importance of the experiential dimension in the construction of social order.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL LANDSCAPE
I am interested in the individual's experience of stuttering (through the lens of forming his own identity), his life world (personal/social), over time (temporal). Disability theorists and activists have actively promoted an understanding of the experience of disability in the context of the social world. There has been a real explosion in the literature around the concept of self and identity.
I am interested in understanding how and why participants negotiate stuttering in the context of their self-identity formations. In this study, I therefore investigate how and why people with autism deal with stuttering over time in the context of their identity formations.
CHAPTER THREE
SITUATING LIFE HISTORY RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Witherell and Noddings are convinced of the value of life stories as a powerful research tool. The story created in the context of the narrative interview is not complete or whole that reveals the entirety of the individual's narrative identity. It is an identity created in the context of the research interview that is characterized by selectivity and guided by narrative goals (Lucius-Hoene & Depperman, 2000).
Life history accesses self-referential stories, a unique point of view of the individual situated in culture, time and place. The critical point about life history data is that it is produced in the context of the interview. The task of the researcher is to make sense out of complexity and versatility in the interests of knowledge production.
In the storytelling process, the researcher can also be positioned differently, for example as a mother who could understand what it must be like to have a child with a problem, or as a clinician. By recognizing the interplay of the various parts, a story can be written and the researcher is in a position to "imagine the real" (Josselson, 1995: 42). Against the backdrop of the dialogic creation of narrative identities and questions of ethics and power, I must problematize the use of life history methodology with participants who stutter.
The people on the margins, and PWS, can and have spoken outside the research domain. In the interview, the researcher may want to check for internal consistency by revisiting aspects of the experience and comparing with other sources, if necessary and possible. What is said, what is not said, what can be remembered or not, is part of the story.
CHAPTER FOUR
Research Instruments
In this section, I provide a detailed overview of the interview process that served as the primary data production method. I found that after clarifying the purpose of the interview, the participants seemed comfortable with the types of issues raised, and the discussion became more focused. I only intervened if the discussion strayed too far from the scope of the research.
The purpose of the interview was not only to hear the words the participants spoke, but also to interpret the meaning (verbal and non-verbal) to understand life stories. Third, it was important to listen to the logic of the story with the intention of noticing contradictions, internal consistencies, and themes. I realized that neither of us could be neutral, but also that the purpose of the study was to understand the participant's story.
It was necessary to respect different points of view and to keep the intention of the project clear. In this section, I discuss how I generated the transcripts and how the three levels of data analysis unfolded. Since the transcript will never be a faithful copy of the interview (Denzin, 1995), I opted for a verbatim transcription of what was said or of the actual words used in the research interview.
The first level of analysis was generated by an interpretation of the interview data, memos and listening to the audio tapes. This initial level of analysis was a narrative analysis (Polkinghorne, 1995) of each of the seven cases. The second level was an analysis of the underlying meaning of the data produced in the interview, while the third level involved the generation of abstractions from the second level analysis.
First level analysis
It is therefore sensible and reasonable to suggest that the participant must also contribute to establishing the credibility of the research story. In the first version of the stories I wrote in the first person, I did not pay enough attention to the exact words and style of the participant. However, I felt that the research story should remain close to the participant's voice, particularly because I had an interest in issues of self-identity formation in this study.
These were also elucidated through the use of fictional techniques occasionally recreating scenes in the history of research to give clarity to the points being made. I think it is possible that some participants may not be interested in all steps of the research process. In the context of life stories, the process was intuitive, where I intended to develop a configurational understanding of the unfolding experience.
I first listened to the audio tapes for the transcription and general understanding of the stories. The details of the individual case analysis are not presented in the cross-case analysis. The abstractions are not specific to each case, but reflect the most robust results in the context of criticality.
On a personal level I felt that the nature of the research process allowed me to be honest and I tried to follow the available guidelines closely to increase credibility. It was therefore necessary to be fair within a wider aim of equality in the research process. I supported him at the end of the research process and reflect on this process in Chapter Eight.
CHAPTER FIVE
RESEARCH STORIES
We went to school in Umlazi, an African township, in the 1970s and the rules were strict. We are back in class and we are so emotionally and mentally distracted that we are unable to do work. As a high school student, he was the founder of the first non-racist youth forum established in the greater Durban Metropolitan Region, Durban.
I was especially quiet in class because I didn't want them to notice that there was something wrong with me. Sometimes a stutter would come out, but I would squash it. the children who went to school with me for six years in elementary school never bothered with my stuttering. I couldn't avoid stuttering because we were expected to speak more in class.
He returns to the Union in September for a longer stay, visiting Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town. The Sunday Tribune has been inundated with calls. It depends on who's watching, whether it's a high-stakes event, and whether you're in waters you know well. I didn't have to worry about anything in the world and I thought less about my stuttering. with setbacks along the way.
Under the small tent with the rain lashing down on the roof: you, your wife and three children huddled together... the rest of the world didn't matter. Transitions are never easy, but we have a democracy and the best constitution in the world. In class I did very well in Maths and Accounting and felt that it was easier to answer questions in these subjects.
As part of the group effort I took part in a newspaper campaign, the famous Ebony and Ivory campaign with Gareth in the group. There would be strikes in the area, the roads would be blocked with huge stones and the schools would be closed because of the violence.
