Enabling the Authentic Voice: Generating Ethnographies of Women with Cerebral Palsy

Theshared culture of disabled researchers and participants offers opportunities forcatharsis, problem solving and empowerment.

The shared culture of disabledresearchers and participants can contribute to the successful recruitment ofparticipants, and generation of rich data about sensitive and personalsubject.

Researchers can build a rapport with participants in emailand IM interviews by writing something brief about their ownexperiences of healthcare and disablism, to indicate insider understanding.

The dual roles and perspectives of researchers (as insiders and researchers) can avoid the risks of over-rapport and loss of objectivity.

All recruitment materials (including consent and participant informationforms) should be produced in digital formats so they canbe emailed to participants or uploaded to social media sites.

Participants may find digital communications easier than paper-based.

Havingaccess to information in digital formats provides time and spacefor participants to reflect on and tell their own storiesin their own words.

Email and IM interviews can putsome distance between participant and researchers which can be morecomfortable for some women when disclosing personal information.

When usingemail and IM interviews, researchers can use written words, symbols and emojis to indicate they are listening to participants.