Many years ago, I read a book called “Far from the three” by Andrew Solomon (2012) . The book is the result of over 11 years of interviews with circa 300 very different families which kids fell… well, far from the tree: deafness, dwarfism, down syndrome, autism, prodigies, queerness, amongst others. These kids were part of a universe, a culture, identities, that was foreign to the families they were born into.
In the book, Solomon formulates this concept of there being two types of identities: vertical and horizontal. Vertical is the one for what can be passed down generationally, and one will likely share with parents: ethnicity, nationality, language, sometimes religion. And, observing the consequences of being part of a minority, in general, there is no attempt to “fix” those. Horizontal identities however are more often shared with a small community you “encountered” and can differ radically from you family or parents: being deaf, queer, autistic. The identity aspect for these needs to be learned from peers outside of the family. There is no pre-established scaffolding inherited. In here, some disabilities are presented as horizontal identities, and they can both be lived as illnesses, and/or claimed as identities.
Solomon’s frame of difficulties in horizontal identities perfectly aligns with the social model of disability (SMD) (UAL, 2020): the hardships are not intrinsic to the condition but manufactured by a world built for and by vertical-identity holders: A deaf child isn’t inherently excluded; they are excluded by a hearing world that didn’t design itself with them in mind. If the SMD proposes inclusion by design, changing the environment, systems and attitude’s, Solomon presents us with the difficult human dilemma of some changes: Parents, by meaning the best to their kids, can “fix” deafness with cochlear implants, but will they ever fit in either hearing or deaf identities? Fix the person to fit the world, or change the world to fit the person? And who can afford to go ‘against’ the world?
The central finding of the book is the same as the provocation that led to its existence: in our alterity, we meet by constructing meaning from our own stories. Despite being different people, with different overlapping social identities and circumstances, there were shared feelings, experiences and crossings amongst them, and that makes us, readers, empathize and identify with many situations. Solomon guides us through these families’ homes and lives from his perspective as a gay man, feeling loneliness, inadequacy and isolation. Yet isn’t that a common feeling to immigrants, or those who can’t fluently speak a language? Aren’t we all one accident away from becoming disabled, or luckily years away from needing accessibility adaptations?
This book came to mind to compliment what studies and theories alone rarely manage to grasp: the human aspect of the abstract. Terms and policies are important, but they only make sense with human characters to live them. The best way to build a more welcoming university, that holds space for horizontal identities as comfortably as vertical ones, is not just through better policy, but through the quiet hard work of building meaning and finding resonance in each other’s stories.
References
Andrew Solomon, Google (2013) Far from the Tree: Andrew Solomon | Talks at Google [Online video]. 4 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSV1i40cpcs (Accessed: 8 May 2026).
Inclusion London (no date) The social model of disability and the cultural model of deafness. Available at: https://www.inclusionlondon.org.uk/about-us/disability-in-london/social-model/the-social-model-of-disability-and-the-cultural-model-of-deafness/ (Accessed: 8 May 2026).
Solomon, A. (2012) Far from the tree: parents, children, and the search for identity. New York: Scribner.
UAL (2020) The Social Model of Disability at UAL. 12 March. Available at: https://youtu.be/mNdnjmcrzgw (Accessed: 8 May 2026).
