Adulting: Imagination and Daily Work in the Social Construction of Adulthood

• In Event: Disability in Society Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1. At the Nexus: The Sociology of Disability and Other Sociologies

Abstract

In this paper I document the process through which adulthood is performed and measured at an independent living program for people with intellectual and developmental disability. I begin by elaborating the difference between adulthood, a personal and cultural ideal, and adulting, the daily “work” of adulthood. When participants first join the program, they work with staff to identify “life goals” that embody their richly imagined ideas about adulthood. Staff then design intermediate goals, or daily work, that push participants toward the elusive goal of becoming “as independent as possible.” These intermediate goals are continually revised to reflect a participant’s new capabilities or replaced to reflect new interests. This continual process of meeting goals and revising them constructs autonomy as an ever-moving target, one that is always very close and yet just out of reach for participants. Autonomy is, in short, ambiguous: participants can always be both more and less dependent than they currently are, a reality that produces anxiety about the legitimacy of their adult identities. In the face of this anxiety, participants prove their adulthood with daily work and constant progress toward increased independence.

Author

• Adrianna Munson, University of Nevada-Las Vegas