Feminist dilemmas and embodied reflections: The study of gender identity in people with physical disabilities

Abstract

This research aims to analyze body changes as a result of the development of a physical disability and how it affects subject’s gender identity. Following this research, I embodied the process of reflexivity needed to be aware of and consistent with the approaches of feminist epistemology and critical ethnography. This process led me to reflect and rethink my professional practice, ethics of research and, based on the questions "Who am I to my informants?" and "who are they for me?" my relation with the field. Meaningfully, I reflect on how variables that intersect in the symbolic and material position of the subjects (in this case my informants and myself) influence the relationship between them and, consequently, in the generation of situated knowledge. Once I finished this analysis, I found imperative to review the thesis I once defended and re-situate the findings.