Blindness and the Interactional Emergence of Disability

By analysing interactions between blind and sighted individuals, this article shows that, under certain circumstances, the process of social interaction can identify blind participants not only as impaired, but also as disabled. When blind individuals interact with sighted strangers, they often need to ensure that the sighted people know about their condition. However, the very act of “communicating the impairment” may portray them as limited, either functionally (e.g. being unable to find one's way), cognitively (e.g. being unable to understand a technical object) or socially (e.g. embarrassing others or oneself). Despite its disabling character, such a portrayal constitutes a rational solution to an interactional problem – the problem of ensuring that all participants are mutually aware of the fact that one participant is impaired. The article concludes that blind interactants are routinely confronted with a dilemma, as they find themselves forced to trade maximal social respect and empowerment for improved co-operation and efficiency.