"I don’t want to be called strong anymore": An exploration of Covid-19 moral messages and high-risk disability identity management

Abstract

While adopting COVID-19 precautions, high-risk disabled individuals have had to come face to face with blatant messages about the worth of their lives. The goal of this study was to give voice to high-risk disabled individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study employed negotiated morality theory (Waldron & Kelley, 2008) and social identity management (Silva & Sias, 2010) to guide a qualitative exploration of how high-risk disabled individuals processed stigmatizing moral messages and negotiated their many identities during the pandemic. The findings of this study suggest that high-risk people with disabilities experienced a significant identity shift due to the moral messages surrounding COVID-19. A thematic analysis of thirty interviews revealed the process of this shift through three main themes: the initial potential of a more accessible future, cultural negotiations of morality, and the reconstruction of identity.