Lockdown Fits and Misfits: Disabled Young People’s Lives Under COVID-19 Lockdown

Abstract

This article analyses COVID-19 stories of disabled young people describing their everyday experiences during spring 2020. Data consist of 14 entries submitted to the Corona Competition organized by the Supporting Foundation for Children and Youth with Disabilities. We ask how disabled young people narrate their lockdown experience. Our analysis focuses on the one hand on the hegemonic lockdown narratives and subject positions constructed with these and on narration of disability on the other. The findings highlight the variations in the narratives in relation to experiences of (mis)fitting. In many of the texts, lockdown is presented as not leading to changes in the narrator’s sense of self or experience of disability. A few stories make visible how the lockdown has even diminished dominance of disability experiences in narrator’s life. However, for some of the narrators, the lockdown has led to deepening sense of misfitting and amplified their experience of disability.