The time(s) of our lives: Exploring and opening up alternative temporalities through the experience of disability

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how some relate to time atypically and how, precisely through that relation, they help to disclose possibilities for alternative ways of being more generally. Both the COVID-19 pandemic as well as increasing threats of climate change have engendered an appreciation of the precariousness of our existence; in short, these crises have illuminated the inevitability of an uncertain future both immediately and in the long term. Despite the loom, the ways in which we live our lives in the dominant culture of Western society reflects a linear, future oriented temporality where able-bodied citizens often strive for progress and advancement, transformation, and ultimately mastery of the environment. Other temporalities exist, however, such as those shared by people whose bodily experiences construct their social realities in unconventional ways. Often it is their diagnosis that puts them out of line both with developmental time and fundamentally the neoliberal ethos of a productive life. This study strove to disrupt the domination of linear time and opposingly argued that these alternative relationships with time may be more well suited to the precarious nature of our lives. Guided by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s (2012) bioethical assertion that we might want to conserve rather than eliminate disability, I sought to uncover alternative temporalities in the hopes of disclosing their generative potential. Four memoirs written by parents of children with diverse disabilities were used as qualitative data to convey the experience of disability, temporalities and alternative ways of being in the world. The findings highlight opportunities for rethinking the ways in which we perceive and interact with time.