Quadriplegia,virtue theory,and flourishing: a qualitative study drawing on self-narratives |
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| Authors: | Shane Clifton Gwynnyth Llewellyn Tom Shakespeare |
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| Institution: | 1. Theology, Alphacrucis College, Parramatta, NSW, Australia;2. Faculty of Health Sciences, Centre for Disability Research and Policy, University of Sydney, Lidcombe, NSW, Australia;3. Faculty of Health Sciences, Centre for Disability Research and Policy, University of Sydney, Lidcombe, NSW, Australia;4. Disability Research, University of East Anglia, Norwich Medical School, Norwich, UK |
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| Abstract: | Grounded in the logic of the virtue tradition, the qualitative study “the good life and quadriplegia” collected the self-narratives of people that have lived with the impairment over the medium to long term. This article draws on those narratives to describe how people understood the good life in the context of the losses and hardship of their spinal-cord injury, and the virtues and attitudes that helped them to achieve it. While highlighting the importance of virtue, participant stories resisted the ideology of the positivity myth, recognising that flourishing includes hardships, limitation, and failure, as well as meaning, virtue, and accomplishment. |
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| Keywords: | Virtue spinal cord injury narrative the good life flourishing eudaimonia |
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