Spoiled Identity and the Curated Self:Narrativising Stigma in Parents' Memoirs of Raising Disabled Children

Cooper, Harriet (2025) Spoiled Identity and the Curated Self:Narrativising Stigma in Parents' Memoirs of Raising Disabled Children. In: Recalibrating Stigma. Bristol University Press, 173–188. ISBN 978-1529235821

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Abstract

This chapter examines the negotiation of disability-related stigma in 21st-century Anglo-American memoir culture. How, it asks, do parents deploy a life-narrative approach to negotiate a perceived spoiled identity arising out of the arrival of a disabled child in their lives? I argue that the possibilities of self-curated social media technologies and the related ecology of the memoir industry offer opportunities to narrativise parenthood differently, aimed at taking account of and resignifying a perceived loss associated with the stigma of disability. Moreover, as theorists of memoir and disability including Apgar (2023) and Couser (2004) have argued, the production of memoir allows privileged parents to recuperate the social and reputational capital whose loss is associated with the devalued personhood of the disabled child. I explore some of the challenges and opportunities afforded by memoir culture to the representation of disability-related stigma.

Item Type:	Book Section
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Mental Health and Social Care (fka Lifespan Health) Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Epidemiology and Public Health Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Gender and Its Intersections
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	03 Oct 2025 16:30
Last Modified:	03 Oct 2025 19:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/100625
DOI:	10.51952/9781529235838.ch010

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