Being disabled in rural areas(example of Antalya)

Being a disabled individual is not a condition that can only be defined by disability. At the same time, it is a value that is built and attributed to the individual by the place where daily life is produced and the social interactions within it. For this reason, while an orphan is an individual problem for a disabled person, everything else he / she has experienced in relation to his / her disability emerges as a result of social structures and interactions. In this sense, as well as social exclusion, isolation and stigmatization, institutional access problems are experienced as social problems rather than individual. The research is an attempt to understand being a disabled person in rural areas from a sociological perspective. In this study which has a qualitative research design, the characteristics of the disability of the disabled people living in rural areas (type of disability, cause of disability, treatment status), accessibility problems in the public sphere, expected roles and attitudes, how they perceive themselves in society and how they define themselves The aim of this study is to determine the negative aspects of the perspective, the negative behaviors to which it is exposed (exclusion, pity, ridicule, useless vision), the situations of exposure to violence and the areas where it is subjected to violence and the other deprivations in their economic and social life. In this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with 24 disabled individuals living in Serik and Manavgat districts of Antalya province and villages connected to the district with disability status for at least one year. A semi-structured interview form was used as a data collection tool in accordance with the subject, purpose and problem sentences of the research. Compilation, processing, control and analysis of the data were performed respectively. The data obtained from the interviews were analyzed through descriptive content analysis. For this purpose, the data were divided into coding units and interpreted under predetermined themes. According to the results of the study, being a disabled individual in rural areas is identified with labeling and being poor. Maintaining their daily lives in a small environment and space limits their social relations networks. For this reason, social interactions take place mostly with family members within the household. Environmental interactions vary according to the disability status of the individual, the physical structure of the rural area or the perspective of the disabled individual. Being partially or fully dependent on one indicates the need for a person with disabilities. There is an absolute parent who cares about the disabled person in care and generally disabled people see themselves as a burden. Although there are disadvantages of rural life, urban life is undesirable by disabled individuals and their relatives because they adopt rural life and spend almost all of their lives here. Keywords: Disability Individual, Disability, Disability Sociology, Rural Area