Othering, ableism and disability

The aim of this article is to explore how able-bodied managers and employees engage in the ‘othering’ of colleagues with impairments. Taking a discursive analytical approach, the study examines interviews with 19 managers and 43 colleagues who all worked closely with an employee with cerebral palsy in 13 different work organisations. The primary finding of the study is that observers spontaneously refer to other ‘different’ people (e.g., transvestites, homosexuals, immigrants) when talking about a colleague with impairments. This finding suggests that disability is simultaneously a discursive category (i.e., the discourse of ableism prevents observers from talking about the impairments of a colleague) and a material phenomenon (i.e., employees with impairments are a distinct category of employees in the eyes of the observers). Othering employees with impairments thus demonstrates contradictory discourses of ableism (which automatically produce difference) and tolerance and inclusiveness (which automatically render it problematic to talk about difference).