| This dissertation details the author's autoethnographic account of this research project. The project led the author on a journey through three bodies of academic literature related to disabilities studies, human resilience, and narrative identity. The author reports on her personal experiences as a woman with a physical disability and interviews six female participants with physical disabilities, together telling a tale of resilience in the context of physical disability. The researcher conducted a three-phase analysis of the women's interviews and reports on the three major areas of thematic findings. Specifically, the women's stories reveal what resilience in the context of physical disability means to the women, narrative roles of self and other in resilience, and evidence of resilience principles and factors, redemption language and springboard effects. The author provides final assertions that express personal feelings of transformational growth resulting from the research journey and describe the journey's impact on her understanding of resilient selves, narrative resilience and resilience narratives. |
