With the title, I am fashioning a paradox. From the classic insight of Sennett and Cobb (1972) I take the ‘hidden injuries’ that imply suppression and gross injustice. The term ‘slight limp’, on the other hand, is to remind the reader and myself that although I am not ‘normal’, I am not ‘really’ disabled. In the long view, the fact that I am capable of writing this out means no less than that I am proclaiming emancipation, and furthermore, that at long last I am willing to cope with the issue of how normality is processed and structured on a personal level.

I will try to make my point of view clear by talking about how and where, in the course of my life, I have experienced normality, absorbed setbacks, and occasionally reversed them. My thesis is that normality and abnormality are experienced in on-going processes of situated sociality, mediated by macro-structured perceptions, awarenesses and discourse, and are irrationally embodied. The micro-processes and the macro-structures are interwoven according to differently proportioned models in different stages of the life span.

Agency and the self

If agency is the ability to make decisions on action, I am an agent. I am constantly making decisions about what I can and what I cannot do. I use the computer, I read books, I cook and bake, I play the piano, I lecture, I vote and eat, I shop and go ‘out’.