Document Type
Article
Abstract
In this article, I provide an autoethnographic account of the discursive and narrative changes I have experienced and the agency I have found, following an accident thirty-seven years ago that resulted in permanent spinal cord injury. Initially losing my career and identity as a farmer, my hope and survival depended on adopting new frameworks of understanding – both in terms of the physical realities of living with incomplete quadriplegia and in becoming subjectively positioned quite differently than I was as an able-bodied male with farming knowledge and skills. In more recent years, as my spinal health and mobility have deteriorated, the challenge has shifted to maintaining a sense of agency when many daily activities have become increasingly difficult or no longer independently possible. Given these meaning-making shifts and associated personal and professional development I have engaged in since the spinal injury, my narrative could perhaps be described as a hero’s journey.
DOI
10.26736/hs.2024.01.14
Recommended Citation
Arkwright, James
(2024)
"Living with Quadriplegia: A Journey of Personal and Professional Development,"
Heroism Science: Vol. 9:
Iss.
1, Article 13.
DOI: 10.26736/hs.2024.01.14
Available at:
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/heroism-science/vol9/iss1/13