Authors: Merja Tarvainen
Overview
This study investigates loneliness in life stories by people with disabilities. By approaching loneliness from a relational perspective, this study attempts to illustrate how loneliness and disability are intertwined in the life course. Theresearch question was as follows: How do people with dis-abilities understand loneliness in their life stories? Life storydata‘Life of Disabled Persons in Finland 2013–2014’wasanalysed with a narrative life course approach. Loneliness was narrated in accordance with normative life course expectations. People with disabilities narrated loneliness as unbelonging in childhood, disjointed youth and disaffiliation to normative institutions in adulthood. This study suggests that relation between loneliness and disability concern the conditions of inclusion that is the conditions of living and telling.
Keywords: loneliness; disability; narrative; life course; the body
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