For this PhD project my focus was on the organization and its assistants (caregivers): why they come, what they're looking for, what they actually learn, where they feel challenged to grow themselves, challenges they offer to L'Arche for how it needs to grow. There are many stories about core members lives' (people with impairments) the assistants' narratives about what they have lived and learned together. Alongside the participant observation I interviewed and surveyed over 100 assistants from 8 communities across Canada.

I discuss the enculturation processes in L'Arche that help to shape the moral imagination of caregivers: how to imagine disability and difference in constructive ways? I also discuss mutuality and power in relationships across difference that emerge in life-sharing scenarios. Another interesting dimension is how the everyday narrative practices in L'Arche contribute so much to the different kinds of transformation that many assistants' experience. I end with some macro-reflections on the mission of L'Arche and why it is so important for it to persevere with its desire to be a sign of hope.

Abstract

1. Introduction

2. A statement on method

3. Historical review of intellectual disability

4. Emerging and converging forces in the history of L'Arche

5. Motives & expectations of assistants

6. The process of enculturation in a local moral world

7. Negotiating mutuality across difference & inequality

8. Conclusion

9. Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Links:

• McMaster University
• L'Arche Canada