Mode som funk(is)ar - konsumtion som strategi för identitetsskapande för personer med synliga funktionsnedsättningar

Abstract

This essay will discuss consumption as a strategy for creating one’s identity for persons with visible disabilities. Along with this, questions asked and answered are concerning how lack of inclusion in the fashion industry affects the informants’ consumption of clothes and how the informants discuss identity in relation to their disability. Compulsory able-bodiness (McRuer, 2006) is a main theory that will influence both the discussion and the results. The results are that the informants’ use different forms of identity to regain negative connections to their disability, through creating a unique and positive identity and proving harmful stereotypes wrong. The informants’ use strategies to consume clothes by relying on experience with the stores’ products and online shopping. The informants are affected in a negative manner from lack of inclusion by being restrained from experimenting and exploring their identity through clothes. Even though the informants are aware that their disability, through other peoples’ eyes, are a part of them, they don’t want the focus being on anything other than their personality.