Rural Connections: Knitting the fabric of

community?Presentation to CeDR Disability Studies Conference,

Lancaster, September 9-11th 2014:“New Directions for Disability Studies”,

Liz Ellis, PhD candidate The Open University, Milton Keynes, UKelizabeth.ellis@open.ac.uk

•Research outline•Using mobile methods – advantages and disadvantages

•Initial outcomes•Connections: Kin, Friends, Kith, Proximal

•Rhizomes•Connection mats

The research in a nutshell

• PhD project exploring belonging, rurality and the experiences of people with learning difficulties.

• Inclusive research process (Walmsley & Johnson 2003).

• Co-researchers involved in design, data collection and analysis.

• Used mobile or ‘go-along’ methods.

Key Research Questions

• Who do people with LD see regularly?

• Where do people with LD see people

• What stops people with LD being part of their community (and the opposite, what helps)?

• How have things changed over time?

Themes of Research Trips

• Places I feel good going to

• Places I go to regularly

• Outside my front door

• Places in my past

Mobile Research methodsAdvantages• Situates the research in the space

• Helps to equalise the research relationship

• Rich and complex data

• Naturalistic and reciprocal

Disadvantages

• Consent issues• Self-censorship• Mountains of extremely diverse data

• Time-consuming compared to other methods

Some Outcomes

• Whose analysis?• Connections• Autonomy and Interdependence• “Staying Local” (Ledger 2012)

Relationship between different connections

/Kin

“Rhizomes are oppositional to trees which symbolise hierarchies, linearity and extreme stratification. Ignore trees. Think, instead, of weeds, grass, swarms and packs… points on a rhizome always connect to something else; rhizomes are heterogeneous not dichotomous; they are made up of a multiplicity of lines that extend in all directions; they break off, but then they begin again.” (Goodley 2007 :13)

Source for drawings: Riviere A. and C., Les Bambous, végétation, culture, mutliplication. Paris 1878

Liz’s connection mat

John’s connection mat

Mark’s connection mat

Questions

• What might it mean?• Can we reproduce kith in other communities?

• Or is “staying local” the only antidote to fragmenting communities?

References• Antaki, C., Finlay, W. M. L., & Walton, C. (2007). The staff are your friends:

intellectually disabled identities in official discourse and interactional practice. The British Journal of Social Psychology / the British Psychological Society, 46(Pt 1), 1–18. doi:10.1348/014466606X94437

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• Goodley, D. (2007). Towards socially just pedagogies: Deluzoguattarian critical disability studies. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 11(3), 1–25.

• Goodley, D., Hughes, B., Davis, L. J., Mallett, R., Runswick-cole, K., Grech, S., Reeve, D. (2012). Introducing Disability and Social Theory. In Disability and Social Theory: New Developments and Directions (Vol. 26, p. NP). Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1093/intimm/dxu005

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• Ledger, S. J. (2012). Staying local: support for people with learning difficulties from inner London 1971-2007. Open University.

• Mason, P., Timms, K., Hayburn, T., & Watters, C. (2013). How Do People Described as having a Learning Disability Make Sense of Friendship? Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities : JARID, 26(2), 108–18. doi:10.1111/jar.12001

• Quarmby, K. (2011). Scapegoat. London: Portobello Books.• Shildrick, M., & Price, J. (2005). Deleuzian Connections and Queer Corporealities:

Shrinking Global Disability. Rhizomes, 11/12. Retrieved from http://www.rhizomes.net/issue11/shildrickprice/

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• Walmsley, J., & Johnson, K. (2003). Inclusive Research with People with Learning Disabilities: Past, Present and Futures. Jessica Kingsley.