Life Story Work as an inclusive methodology to explore identity in intellectual disability

This study explores how young people with intellectual disability (ID) construct and negotiate their identities through life stories, adopting a narrative perspective that foregrounds individuals’ own voices and lived experiences. Using a qualitative narrative research design grounded in Life Story Work (LSW), data were generated with eight individuals with ID through in-depth interviews, participant observation, photographs, and personal documents. An integrated analytic approach combining thematic and narrative analysis was applied to identify transversal patterns across narratives while preserving the internal coherence and temporal structure of each individual life story. Findings show that participants primarily defined themselves through roles, relationships, interests, values, and personal characteristics rather than through diagnostic labels, with disability emerging as a contextual dimension of identity rather than its defining core. At the same time, narratives revealed ongoing negotiations between self-perception and externally imposed meanings of disability, particularly in relation to social stigma and others’ attitudes. Family relationships and a strong sense of belonging played a central role in fostering positive identity construction, while life stories documented identity as a dynamic and evolving process shaped by key life transitions. Overall, the study highlights the value of life stories as spaces for identity construction and resistance to deficit-oriented disability discourses, underscoring the potential of inclusive, narrative methodologies for advancing more person-centered and socially just understandings of identity.