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Disabled individuals form a large part of society, past and present, and yet are often overlooked when it comes to considerations of diversity both within the museum and elsewhere. Within this thesis I will explore recent museum representations of disability, examining the messages they embody and seek to convey. This thesis focuses on three case studies: The Science Museum's Wounded Exhibition, The Museum of Liverpool's Pioneering People and Places: The Blind School exhibition, and the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive, examining for each the site, audio and visual material, websites, external communication, and interviews with staff. Together, these develop a holistic picture of the work carried out regarding disability stories. This view is then evaluated, building upon work in both disability studies and museum studies. From disability studies, I draw on the social model, ideas of inclusion and emancipatory research; from museum studies, I explore issues around social justice, collaboration and co-creation. By combining these, I aim to gain a deeper understanding of how museums are successfully representing disability in a way that is of interest to a wide audience. Throughout my thesis, I demonstrate the importance of working in collaboration with disabled voices in museums, acknowledging individuals' lived experience. In an original contribution, I also advocate and emphasise the importance of acknowledging the role of disability in our wider understanding of what it means to be human, linking to broader stories and themes. This work is important as it speaks to inclusion and access. As I will argue, disability can best be understood as a part of humanity, so overlooking disabled people and their stories undermines museums' capacity to represent the richness and diversity of human life and leaves disabled people more vulnerable to ignorance and abuse. Museums can challenge stereotypes underlying negative attitudes, and I feel it is important that they do so.

Previous research has identified that distress is common in patients with kidney failure who undergo dialysis treatment and that this is associated with poor outcomes (Chilcot, Davenport, Wellsted, Firth, & Farrington, 2011a). Few studies have examined the effectiveness of psychological interventions aimed at improving psychological distress in this patient group. Expressive Writing (EW) is a therapeutic technique that typically involves participants writing about a stressful or traumatic event for 15-20 minutes on 3-5 consecutive days (Pennebaker & Buell, 1986) and has been associated with improvements in psychological (e.g. well-being) and clinical (e.g., immune function) outcomes in several populations, including breast cancer patients (Craft, Davis & Paulson, 2012). The aims of the current study were to establish feasibility of using EW with this patient group. This was done by identifying the factors associated with distress, gauging acceptability and safety of the intervention, recording recruitment and retention rates and by establishing its potential clinical efficacy. The study consisted of two phases; a screening phase which used a cross-sectional questionnaire survey of 97 patients, and a trial phase which randomised 30 patients into two groups (EW or control), with a 3-month follow-up. Results indicated that self-reported symptoms of fatigue and pain, and illness perceptions predicted a significant amount of variance (35%) in distress, above demographic and clinical variables. The EW intervention was found to be feasible in terms of uptake and agreement to randomisation. However, retention rates were lower than some previous EW studies suggesting that modifications are needed to the writing protocol in order to increase adherence. Despite poor retention, results indicated improvements in distress (d=0.23) and systolic blood pressure (d=0.71) for the EW group, when compared to the control group at followup. This suggests that, with modification, EW may be cost effective way to reduce distress in dialysis patients. These findings are discussed with reference to limitations and future research, as well as implications for clinical practice.