We will examine the experiences of people with spinal cord injury in Portugal at different biographical moments. Two stages of the investigation will be singled out.

In the first stage, a focused study will be conducted in the Alcoitão Rehabilitation Centre. Via this study, we aim to understand the incidence of the process of personal reappraisal that follows the existential rupture imposed by spinal cord injury and the experiential process of medical rehabilitation. Thus, we will conduct interviews both with patients in the initial medical rehabilitation phase and with rehabilitation professionals working at the Centre. In the second stage, we will explore the issue of social inclusion of people with spinal cord injury. We will interview people with spinal cord injury in different geographical settings of Portugal, as well as locally relevant actors in the integration process.

Our focus on the process of rehabilitation and social inclusion of people with spinal cord injury will add knowledge to the central socio-anthropological questions that these individual biographies deal with. Also, the analysis of these personal itineraries will be instrumental to our awareness in relation to the disabled people’s claims concerning discrimination and exclusion. We believe that our work will become a valuable tool:

 

 a) for an improvement in public knowledge about this reality;

 

 b) in the definition of social policies;