National University at Distance (UNED), Madrid, Spain.
Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Madrid, Spain.
Sociol Health Illn. 2023 Jul;45(6):1334-1353. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13567. Epub 2022 Oct 28.
Drawing on the notion of bodywork, we analyse the bodily aspects of personal assistance to expand the dialogue between medical sociology and disability studies. We aim to, firstly, overcome the lack of attention to the bodywork of personal assistant (PAs) in disability studies; secondly, explore the micropolitics of personal assistance and the role of independent living mandates in configuring this bodywork of PAs; and, thirdly, propose a more relational and material approach to the impairment/disability debate. This exploration is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 23 PAs conducted in Spain between 2018 and 2020. Our research reveals that PAs' bodywork implies performing their body as body-absence, such as when they enact body-tool and body-prosthesis figurations, but also as body-presence, for instance, as acting bodies and affected/affecting bodies in specific situations. Through their analysis, we foreground how PAs' bodywork conveys normative ways of enacting the body and how these body figurations are not only challenged and negotiated but define the actual practice of personal assistance. To conclude, we stress on the theoretical contributions of our study towards both disability studies and medical sociology.
我们借鉴身体工作的概念，分析个人助理工作中的身体方面，以扩展医学社会学和残疾研究之间的对话。我们旨在：首先，克服残疾研究中对个人助理（PA）身体工作缺乏关注的问题；其次，探讨个人助理工作的微观政治以及独立生活任务在配置这种身体工作方面的作用；最后，对障碍/残疾的辩论提出一种更具关系性和物质性的方法。这项探索是基于 2018 年至 2020 年在西班牙对 23 名 PA 进行的定性半结构化访谈。我们的研究表明，PA 的身体工作意味着将他们的身体表现为身体缺失，例如当他们表现出身体工具和身体假体的形象时，但也表现为身体存在，例如在特定情况下表现为行为体和受影响/影响的身体。通过对其进行分析，我们强调了 PA 的身体工作传达了规范的身体表现方式，以及这些身体形象不仅受到挑战和协商，而且还定义了个人助理工作的实际实践。最后，我们强调了我们的研究对残疾研究和医学社会学的理论贡献。
