Progression on the thesis

Now I have restarted completely the writing process. Much of this is due to an altering of my approach as a consequence of my interviews. It has been a rewarding process.

The restart has also given me the opportunity to do the whole project in English. Hence the thesis will be written in this language. Personally I feel as comfortable with English as I do with Norwegian.

Methodology

Today I skimmed through an interesting book on qualitative research in Entrepreneurship. But I do not feel very stisfied on my own progression with the writing of my thesis. I can see that I need to restructure this thesis fundamentally, which will involve a lot of work. But the result is far more important than my workload!

I also received a mailing list for the intermediary sector today. Probably I will make an initial questionaire to obtain some background information before contacting some for a deeper interview.

Research

I might face a challenge in collecting interviews. This far I have predominantly amputee respondents. So I would need representatives from other groups as well. Additionally, I need to find more entrepreneurs who have been in touch with the intermediary organisations. Hopefully somebody can help me to search for people who meet these criteria.

Interviews

Last week I finished three interviews on my Master thesis. I gathered some interesting stories which can aler some of my private hypothesis. However, thus far I have been in touch with a quite narrow segment, and I need to find persons with other impairments to display a variety.

My target to finish this round before Easter is proving impossible, though I do not find this very problematic. There are plenty of tasks within this project that can be performed parallel to the empirical studies.

Progression

I must admit that I feel a bit frustrated at times regarding the progression of the Master thesis. But at least, now I have finally started my search for candidates that I can interview. I need around ten entrepreneurs with a disability and also some respondents representing intermediary organisations. If you know anyone, please don't hesitate posting me a line or two!

Late night comment on studies

The intensions are normally good, but often the proposed policies of integration fail. Still an medical system approach is widely effected when introducing people with disability to working life rather than putting the stuctural shortcomings of the labour market on the agenda. This forms some thoughts around an approach for my Master Project.

On disability; mark I

When reading literature on disability and definitions surrounding the state, I find many interesting positions. Clearly our Western ideology of perfection relative to a perceived normality as a human being has disabled a vast number of people. By this I do not limit the understanding to what we "normally" define as disabled. Still biologigal and physiological variances are often diagnosed as disabilities whether they represent any functional disadvantage or not.

It's late at night now, so I need to reflect more upon the various approaches to the theme. But I am certain even at this point that a social approach which enlightens the barriers produced by our social structure represents a stance for further work on my behalf. Still, I am equally certain that we as "disabled" need to address our challenges in a motivating manner to gain understanding and respect.