Abstract
Men are occupied daily creating their masculine persona. Foucault would describe this process as the formulation of the masculine subject, while Bourdieu would refer to the development of a masculine habitus. Regardless of terminology, both theorists agree that masculinity is constructed and reproduced through interaction with the social world. Foucault describes these interactions as happening within social spaces, while Bourdieu uses the term field to describe the same concept. Living with a disability can change how men view themselves within the social world depending on which discourses they engage with.
A critical discourse analysis (CDA) was undertaken to understand how men with disabilities create and reinforce their masculinity through their interactions with certain discourses. A theoretical base was established utilising the works of Bourdieu and Foucault to guide and inform the research, while Norman Fairclough’s’ four-step approach to CDA was applied to the research findings. Twenty-two men between the ages of 18 and 65 years, living with an acquired disability for more than six months were recruited either through advertising or direct approach from a third party. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken, and interview transcripts were analysed in relation to a list of questions related to the research question.
Men living with disabilities experience a reduction of capital and social status due to their newly inhabited health situation. The inability to fulfil the masculine requirements set out in varying discourses, due to their disability, creates significant hysteresis for these men. This inability often results in the man’s loss of masculine identity along with negative personal and rehabilitation outcomes.
Discourse is not relegated to language alone but incorporates how people enact their talk. The understanding of how men with disabilities position themselves in conjunction with varying discourses will enable health care providers, particularly those engaged in rehabilitation settings, such as occupational therapists, to adjust their own interaction with certain discourses to guide men with disabilities to re-position themselves within a social space or field through the reformulation and recreation of the meanings behind the predominant discourses these men engage with. Through this process men living with disabilities may be able to maintain, or create, and reinforce a masculine identity congruent with pre-disability status; thereby reducing hysteresis and gaining more valuable rehabilitation outcomes.