Getting in and getting on: An intersectional approach to the careers of the visually impaired in the workplace

Abstract

Supporting visually impaired persons to achieve their potential in a context characterised by underdeveloped markets and institutions has come to dominate the discourse on equality, inclusiveness, and diversity in the workplace. Drawing on the contemporary turn to ‘intersectionality’ in social theory as a lens, this thesis explores the careers of the visually impaired in the workplace and provides fresh empirical articulation on how their identity, situatedness, and positionality in a context marked by underdeveloped institutions may combine to shape and give form to their career outcomes. Developing the study’s contribution in the context of Ghana, the Ghana Blind Association served as the empirical research site for recruiting the research participants who met the study’s theoretical sampling strategy. Methodologically, the study took an interpretive approach and adopted an exploratory research design. The main data for the empirical inquiry were semi-structured interviews collected from twenty-eight (28) registered visually impaired people who are employed in various capacities across different industries. This was supplemented with publicly available data including Ghana government white papers and policy documents on disability, policy documents of the Ghana blind association, and popular newspaper articles on the life and careers of disabled people in Ghana. The study presents three main findings. First, challenging the taken-for-granted assumption that employers may actively provide support to visually impaired job applicants to help them get a foot in the employment ‘doorway’, the study found that entry into the job market required visually impaired persons, like any other applicant, to have the requisite educational qualifications or technical competences required for the job. Beyond this, the visually impaired, by their disability, are likely to experience micro-aggression and be subjected to personally intrusive questions when trying to get a foot in the employment doorway. Second, while the visually impaired may progress on the job through timebound promotions and participation in capacity development programmes, they frequently faced the challenge of working in disability unfriendly environment, which frequently plays out in the form of the lack of basic assistive devices and the underutilisation of skills which combine to impede their potentiality to progress in practice. Third, to survive the very challenging environments in which they work, the study identified and labelled three differential coping strategies: adaptation, avoidance, and confrontational strategies, which the visually impaired in their situated work practice tend to adopt to help them navigate, manage, and deal with the plethora of challenges they face within the contingencies of working and getting work done. The thesis contributions are three-fold. First, emphasising how the identity, situatedness, and positionality of visually impaired persons in a context marked by underdeveloped institutions interact to shape their career entry and outcomes, the intersectionality helps to uncover how taken-for-granted assumptions about the social positions of the disabled, organizing structures and workplace conditions interact, engendering the dynamics of challenges faced by the visually impaired to ‘getting in’ and ‘getting on’ at the workplace. Second, the study extends our understanding of how the visually impaired experience work by providing insights into their experiences at the workplace, elucidating how they make sense and make meaning of the intractable challenges they face in ‘getting in’ and ‘getting on’ at the workplace. Third, the study contributes to the literature on disability and work, and the theorizing of intersectionality by identifying forms and strategies employed by the visually impaired to cope with the challenges they encounter in the workplace. Pragmatic interventions to support and empower visually impaired persons in ways that could help them to enter the workplace, thrive, and pursue their careers are presented.