Institutional Discourses and Ascribed Disability Identities

In the present study we asked: how do institutional discourses, as represented in mass media such as newspapers, confer identities upon a traditionally marginalised collective such as those with a disability?  To answer our question, we examined Indian newspaper discourse from 2001 to 2010, the time period between two census counts. More specifically, we obtained each newspaper article dealing with disability from 2001 to 2010 from the Times of India, a leading daily English language newspaper. Analysis of 3,176 articles in this newspaper allowed us to observe the following disability identities -- that of a welfare recipient, a collective with human rights, a collective that is vulnerable, and one that engages in miscreancy -- were ascribed through selective highlighting of certain aspects of the collective, thereby socially positioning the collective, and through the associated signalling of institutional subject positions. Present observations indicate that identities of a collective can be governed by institutional discourse, that those “labelled” can themselves reinforce institutionally ascribed identities, and that as institutional discourses confer identities onto the marginalised, they simultaneously also signal who the relatively more powerful institutional actors are. We believe that examining imprecisely defined or evolving institutional concepts such as disability and disability identity, and what underlies them has the potential to shape policy as well as experiences of persons with a disability.