Visualising disability and activism in Second Life

Abstract

Drawing on an ethnographic study of identity and disability in the 3D environment of Second Life (SL), this article documents the authors’ discussions with many regular users (known as ‘residents’) of SL who identify as having a disability or impairment in their ‘actual’ (off-screen) lives. Since SL offers the possibility of anonymity, regular users with a physical impairment may decide when and where to disclose or highlight their disability or whether to do so at all, when they are in world. Many also use the potential of SL to negotiate and challenge conventional media representations of embodied difference through their avatars. In this article the authors argue that the choices of representation reflect the residents’ understandings of their own sense of ‘authenticity’. For some, this involves a self beyond the limitations of physical embodiment – a metaphysical separation between body and mind. For others, the ‘real self’ is inseparable from a physical embodiment which includes the impairment or disability. These choices of how the users portray their avatar selves through a more fluid understanding of self-representation also offer potential for political and social advocacy beyond the virtual world.