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The person in the disabled body: a perspective on culture and personhood from the margins

Overview of attention for article published in International Journal for Equity in Health, September 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (87th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (82nd percentile)

Mentioned by

blogs
1 blog
twitter
4 X users
wikipedia
1 Wikipedia page

Citations

dimensions_citation
29 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
133 Mendeley
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Title
The person in the disabled body: a perspective on culture and personhood from the margins
Published in
International Journal for Equity in Health, September 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12939-016-0437-2
Pubmed ID
Authors

Maayan Agmon, Amalia Sa’ar, Tal Araten-Bergman

Abstract

Persons with disabilities (PWD) are one of the most marginalized groups in Western societies. These inequalities are manifested through various disadvantages in the psychosocial, cultural, and economic domains. Inspired by the World Health Organization's holistic conceptualization of disability, the present study examines the relation between the body and personhood in Israeli culture, through cases of newly diagnosed adults with disability. Participant observation at a rehabilitation daycare center was carried out for a period of two years. The analysis is based on field notes recorded during these observations, including interviews with individuals with disabilities, their family members, and service providers. The analysis reveals the agonizing experience of individuals who have become disabled in adulthood, who undergo symbolic diminution and social exclusion after their former acceptance as whole and normative persons. This ongoing multifaceted process includes infantilization, denial of their sexuality/sensuality, transgression of gender boundaries, and their construction as categorically different from the "healthy" people around them. At the same time, the analysis also demonstrates the ways in which daily routine at the daycare center also complicates the normative healthy-disabled binary, indicating a continuum on which attendees may attempt to reposition themselves. This paper aims to make a dual contribution. We draw on anthropological understandings of"person" as a holistic category to resurrect the personhood of individuals with disabilities, as a correction tothe overwhelming tendency to reduce their humanity to their physical injury. We likewise reverse theanalytical gaze by using these individuals' experiences to understand the normative, culture-bound perception of "healthy" persons. We thus highlight Israeli culture's conditioning of normative personhood on having a perfect body, and its concomitant construction of individuals with physical disabilities as lesser persons. By opting to bring back the person into the disabled body, we aim to facilitate a less stigmatized outlook on disability and to create an opportunity for caregivers, researchers, and healthcare professionals to view disabled persons as whole and complex human beings.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 4 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 133 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 133 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 23 17%
Student > Bachelor 16 12%
Student > Ph. D. Student 15 11%
Researcher 8 6%
Student > Doctoral Student 6 5%
Other 21 16%
Unknown 44 33%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 22 17%
Psychology 18 14%
Social Sciences 15 11%
Medicine and Dentistry 11 8%
Arts and Humanities 6 5%
Other 16 12%
Unknown 45 34%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 14. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 16 July 2023.
All research outputs
#2,413,250
of 24,079,942 outputs
Outputs from International Journal for Equity in Health
#414
of 2,047 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#41,164
of 325,793 outputs
Outputs of similar age from International Journal for Equity in Health
#7
of 34 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,079,942 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 89th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,047 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 79% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 325,793 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 34 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 82% of its contemporaries.