Loosening Bonds and Changing Identities: Growing Up with Impairments in Post War Norway

Abstract

This article reports on an in depth interview investigation concerning the life histories of 70 people with various impairments, representing three different generations or age groups. The central aim of the study is to investigate how social change and the evolution of the welfare state influenced life conditions and opportunities for disabled people in Norway during the second half of the twentieth century. Methodologically, the study also suggests that biographical research offers the means to make links between the lived experiences of disabled people and the wider context of social and institutional change in disabling societies. The aims of this article are to present some of the main patterns detected from the overarching analysis, and thereby to demonstrate some of the implications of a biographical approach for disability studies.