Journeys Through Rough Country: An Ethnographic Study of Blind Adults Successfully Employed in American Corporations

Blind and visually impaired people in the United States face a dire employment situation within professional careers and corporate employment. The purpose of this research study was to gain insights into the phenomenon of employment of blind people through analyzing the lived experience of successfully employed blind adults through ethnographic interviews. Previous research has shown that seven out of ten blind adults are not in the workforce, that a large percentage of those who are employed consider themselves underemployed, and that these numbers have not improved over time. Missing from previous research were insights into the conditions leading to successful and meaningful employment for blind adults. My top research questions were: what experiences and relationships were most significant in the lives of successfully employed blind adults in U.S. corporations, and what the most significant factors were, from employers’ perspectives, leading to these successes. Based on semi-structured interviews of 11 blind adults who self-identified as successfully and meaningfully employed in corporate America, I found successfully employed blind adults have largely forged their own paths, with family support, valuable knowledge, skills, and abilities, and a strong sense of agency playing crucial roles. Corporate inclusion of blind employees is in its infancy. The implications for social change revolve around changing societal perceptions of the capabilities of blind people, transforming corporate cultures to ones of integration rather than differentiation, and building family, school, community, and service provider mechanisms to instill a strong sense of agency in young blind people. My recommendations to others are to focus on a leveraging difference framework of diversity and inclusion, in which every individual is valued for their unique characteristics, and make sure that blind people are positioned to be part of this societal transformation. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu/, and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/