Inclusion in (Inter)action

Abstract

On the evening of January 4, 2002, during a one-month pilot study, Yahya, a 46-year-old Omani man with quadriplegia, of whom I am a friend and a caregiver, expressed his wish to take his daily shower. I promptly obliged by interrupting the conversation I was involved in with his sister, Fatima, and called out for his resident assistant from India, requesting that she fetch Yahya’s commode chair. Upon hearing my request, the assistant, who had been caring for Yahya for one year, similarly interrupted the action she was involved in (washing the dishes) and hurried to the main bathroom where Yahya’s commode chair was seated. Yahya’s teenage nephew, Hythum, also offered his help upon entering Yahya’s room. As the assistant placed the commode chair in the right angle at the right side of Yahya’s bed and took her position behind the commode chair, the following series of negotiations between the five of us ensued (these were captured by video-recorder and occurred in Arabic; what follows is the English translation):¹

Hythum: ((addressing Najma)) You want to lift Yahya Or you want me to do it

Najma: I’ll lift now

Fatima: Come on, Hythum, You are a man now