So why a blog on blindness?

I suspect that there is an expectation that a new blogger, particularly one writing about personal issues, should introduce themselves at the start of writing a new blog. I confess that I’m reluctant to do too much of that here at this stage as I hope that who I am )whatever that is) will emerge in ways that I couldn’t predict. More importantly though, I’m reluctant to position, restrict  or limit myself to you by providing too many auto-biographical shortcuts. I think it is probably particularly nuanced for disabled people as strangers’ desire to ‘know’ more about us than the relationship deserves, is so entrenched in our experience. I’m nervous of saying too much about my blindness, how much I might be able to see, how it limits me, how long I’ve been blind for, how I live etc. I’ll see how I go with it … suffice it to say that I am fascinated by the role that blindness has played in shaping who I am and my relationships throughout my life.

I hope that this will be a critical, witty and sometimes irritable blog that attempts to make some sense of my experience of blindness through explorations of day to day encounters, the situations I find myself in, and of interactions with others and their responses to me.

While this will be a personal account, I write within a wider collective understanding of disability  and of other forms of institutional discrimination.

There are some excellent blogs by blind people on access to technology, resources and also about the discrimination that disabled people face. I want to look more about the aspects of being blind that are less clear, that leave me unsure of what might have just been going on in an encounter, not quite having the words to describe something but nonetheless feeling uncomfortable. I hope in doing this, others might connect with my experience and thinking.

Whoever you are, I hope it is interesting, thought-provoking, resonates with you, supportive or whatever. Please keep coming back, ‘follow’ me and share it with other people who you think might be interested.

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