The story about theater organizations, the public's approval, and the actors' identity formation in Nordic disability theater

Nordic disability theater is a relatively new and interesting field of disability research. In this article, the authors provide an overview of the field of disability theater in a Nordic context. The article is based on a comparative analysis from 3 research projects conducted in Sweden and Norway. The projects used qualitative methods and were analyzed from different theoretical perspectives. Interviews were conducted at 4 different disability theaters involving actors with hearing impairments, intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities, and mental disabilities. The aim of this article is to illustrate how the organizational settings reflect different goals and aims at the political and artistic levels. The authors will also address the relationship between the theaters and the public opinion and media. Finally, they will illustrate in what way organization, recognition, and public approval play an important role for the actors' identity formation and sense of belonging.     

'Doing Motherhood': some experiences of mothers with physical disabilities

In this paper, we discuss the experiences of physically disabled mothers. We interviewed 30 women in the age group 28-49 with medical diagnoses such as: multiple sclerosis, neuromuscular diseases, cerebral palsy and spinal cord injury Becoming a mother implied for many 'capturing' a gender or 'recapturing' a lost gender. They women felt they had to go to great lengths to 'present' themselves and their children as managing 'normally' in order to be accepted as 'ordinary' mothers. Eventually, they feared that their children might be taken away from them if they did not live up to other people's expectations. One possible explanation for what they experienced as other people's scepticism might be that disabled people on the whole are primarily still looked upon as being dependent on other people's help and care. In short, they are often looked upon by professionals and lay people as receivers, and not as carers.