EnableUs

Colleagues-in-stroke,

I've been really affected by the posts recently. Nina's last article/poem about "Body Layers," and Daniele's photographic self-portrait contained in a zip-bag. But also, too, Jeremy's literally constructive engagment in the conversations, asking questions about how the residue of a tragic circumstance is reapplied poststroke. And also, not forgetting, Sophia's poignant article about the boredom of repetition. This catalogue of extraordinary responses to the devastation of brain injury mingles, oftentimes uncomfortablly, with dominant scientific initiatives, as Brian reminds us, "It's important to remember that everyone's stroke journey is unique, and no one can fully grasp what another person has experienced both physically and mentally" (EnableMe, Sept 5, 2026; "cutting edge of stroke research"). Granted. But the extraordinary patient response is overwhelming.

In the Journal of Medical Humanities (believe it or not, there is a scholarly outreach for extraordinarily human responses to medical science), the authors, Abrams & Adkins (2022), cite the work of the critical disability theorist, Michael Oliver, and his study into the tragic circumstance.

"For Oliver," write Abrams and Adkins, "tragedy is a misrepresentation in thought and action, a problem of ideology where individual medical solutions dominate the problem of disability and obscure the environmental, material relations that constitute the discourse surrounding disability." (p. 118). Both Nina and Sophia have described this obfurscation in their writings, with a nod to an oppressive ideology.

But the authors above take Oliver's disability studies comments seriously. What Oliver is saying is that not only is the ideology of individual experience of the tragedy worthy of critique, but so too the efforts of progressive activist's aiming redress an oppressive ideology.

In surmising Oliver's research Abrams and Adkins suggest that Nina's appeal to "Body Layers" is heading in a new direction for disability studies. The catalogue here of recent responses point not just to an individualised enabling of self but the enablement of Us. And by Us I mean not just stroke survivors. Jeremy's inquiries here into poststroke residue enables Nina's "Body Layers" to manifest other enablements; one might consider a stroke survivor enabling a person with vision-impairment. What if, then, colleagues, the widening scope of our recoveries, as recently discussed here, enabled the recovery of other classes of disability; we'd have, then, a new material environment - EnablingUs.

Reference

Abrams, T, & Adkins, B. (2022), Tragic Affirmation: Disability Beyond Optimism and Pessissim. Journal of Medical Humanities 43, pp. 117-128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-020-09612-y ;