This study goes beyond issues of the established binaries of medical–social or inclusion–exclusion that broadly frame disability scholarship. It uses multiscale ethnographic data to unpack and illustrate the complexities of identity through the investigation of social practices inside and outside institutional settings (schools, adult education, workplaces, health care) to understand the ‘doing of’ participation and marginalisation in situ. The study identifies gatekeeping patterns that shape (in)accessibility and illuminates prevailing assumptions regarding dis/ability, otherness, marginalisation and participation. While special arrangements and support in institutional activities are important dimensions of the everyday lives of people who are different from the norm, the handling of such special arrangements requires specific knowledge and competences to be used in appropriate ways and for specific tasks or situations. In that, we argue, lies the balancing act that people who fall outside various norms struggle with over the course of their lives.