Being seen, being heard and being believed: Belonging in the lives of people with an intellectual disabilities label

In neoliberal societies, social inclusion policy and practice is a hallmark of post-institutional approaches to supporting people with intellectual disabilities. However, people with intellectual disabilities continue to experience disproportionate rates of abuse, stigmatisation, and social exclusion. Disability scholars have identified belonging as an underexplored concept that exposes the tension between social inclusion policy prescriptions and lived experience accounts of social exclusion. The aims of this thesis were twofold: firstly, to develop a collaborative understanding of belonging in the lives of a small group of marginalised people with intellectual disabilities; and secondly, to deepen lived experience informed understandings of the relationship between belonging and social inclusion. To achieve these aims, an innovative collaborative methodological approach was used. This approach centred on the active involvement of two lived experience advisors and 16 participants as collaborators in the research encounter, which was conceived and operationalised as a generative site for the co-production of knowledge. Creative and visual data collection methods, including drawing, photography, and poetry, were employed. Belonging, employed as both an interpretive lens and an analytic category, gave rise to embodied narrative accounts of participants’ lives, co-produced through the research encounter. While universally desired, belonging was often elusive in accounts of daily life. Traumatic experiences and stigmatisation cast long shadows over opportunities for belonging. However, a movement towards safety and epistemic justice—through the construction of positive narrative identities—emerged as generative of a sense of belonging. The embodied narratives of belonging, with their interplay of desire, elusiveness, trauma, and justice, highlight a deeper tension between the aspiration to belong and the lived realities of daily life for marginalised people with intellectual disabilities—a tension with significant implications for social inclusion. Ultimately, the potential of belonging to support flourishing lives for marginalised people with intellectual disabilities was found to exist beyond the limits and scope of social inclusion. These findings will inform knowledge, policy, and inclusive research methods and practice in the fields of disability studies and social work and will also be of interest to self-advocates and systemic advocacy organisations.