Ritual, Gender, and Dis/ability: Empowering or Restricting Identity

At present, it can be argued that persons with intellectual dis/abilities

live within a rigid behavioral structure that prioritizes ‘rule-based
learning’. Sets of rules or protocols are developed to govern behaviors,
enforced through staff supervision and individual consequences.
Importantly, these protocols would appear context-independent,
prioritizing standardized behavior over context-specific understanding.
This ‘model’ of care is often referred to as a ‘training model’,
encouraging “patterns of behavior which would allow [these persons]
to be accepted in the wider community” (Meekosha & Dowse 1997:
59).

This paper engages this model seeking to understand how this

structured ‘ritualized’ environment influences construction and
maintenance of identity amongst those living within it. It draws from a
Photovoice research study with five persons with intellectual
dis/abilities which sought to explore how these individuals understood
gender as an influence in their lives. Through dialogue about home,
important persons, and work, participants continually emphasized the
importance of scheduling, routine, and consistency – ritual – in their
constructions of self and community.

The conclusions of this study speak to disagreements among scholars

over whether ritual empowers or restricts individual identities. For
example, participants described a residential care environment that
viewed them as gender-neutral subjects. However, the interpersonal
relationships between staff, staff and residents, and between residents,
added a gendered dimension to the environment. In this environment,
rituals appeared to serve as means of building, maintaining, and
defending the individual’s gender identity.

Routine and ritual also served a large role in the community built up
around a number of these residential care homes. In this largely
closed community, ritual was also found to have the ability to both
include and exclude persons; it built cohesion but also served to isolate
individuals from community outside of the residential care
environment. Although community cohesion was strong – it appeared
to be at the expense of external or non-community relationships.
Rituals, though enforcing individual identities, also served to isolate
individuals within a largely closed community.

The paper concludes with a comment on the tension between ritual

restricting available identity options, and the opportunities ritual
proposes as a means of identity (re)production. Ritual, in this
circumstance, would appear to serve as a tool of organization - but also
of hierarchy and power. Ones ability to participate within the
community appears to emphasize and reproduce a hierarchy of
dis/ability identity.

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Meekosha, H & Dowse, L. (1997). “Enabling Citizenship: Gender,

disability and citizenship in Australia”. Feminist Review, 57: 49–57.