Suggestions
A brief history of the paralympics and disability sport.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games went ahead successfully this year, despite the looming threat of the Delta strain of Covid-19. It also went ahead without the support of the Japanese people , who were understandably concerned about the health risks posed by the coming and going of thousands of international athletes and their support staff. However with billions of dollars in sunk costs and the hopes and dreams of the world’s elite athletes on the line, the games took place, albeit with a 12-month delay.
After the experience of the last 18 months, it felt almost impossible that such an event could even take place. Transporting people from across the pandemic-ridden world to one location to compete together, sweat together, laugh, cry and likely share a celebratory drink or two didn’t seem like a wise idea. To combat these fears, the Olympic organisers put in place strict Covid-19 safety plans . Spectators were no longer able to attend in person and TV screens broadcast empty seats in eerie stadiums devoid of crowds cheering.
In spite of all the negative press and the anxiety and the uncertainty that permeates these times that we live in, the Games felt surprisingly joyous. For those still experiencing lockdowns and restrictions, passing expert judgement on synchronised diving was a welcome distraction. Cheering at the swimmers as they broke record after record while still in pyjamas at 3pm in the afternoon was a genuine highlight. The dedication, talent and pure grit displayed by the athletes in Tokyo seeped into our collective psyches.
And don’t despair, there is still more joy, heartbreak and edge-of-your-seat excitement to come. On August 24 the Paralympic Games began, which showcases more of the world’s best athletes competing at the pinnacle of disability sport.
Photo by Miguel Machado on Unsplash
A history of disability sport
Disability sport can be traced back to the 19th century when the first Sports Club for the Deaf was established in Berlin. Shortly after in 1914, the first International Silent Games took place in Paris bringing together hearing-impaired competitors from nine European countries. The Deaflympics, as the games would come to be known later, began important societal discussions about the welfare of deaf people at the time, who were often treated as outcasts and intellectually inferior . The event provided a valuable platform for deaf people to speak for themselves, as the games not only starred deaf athletes, but was also organised and promoted entirely by the deaf community. The Deaflympics take place every four years, with the next games scheduled for 2022 in Caxias do Sul, Brazil.
The origins of the Paralympics
While the Deaflympics paved the way for international disability sporting events, the origins of the Paralympics lie in World War 2. The neurosurgeon and spinal injury specialist, Ludwig Guttman , cared for many service men and women who had returned from the war with various kinds of paralysis. He believed that physical exercise and sport in particular helped his patients, even severely disabled ones, to live healthier and happier lives. Building on this belief, Guttman decided to organise a sports festival for retired service personnel to promote his approach to therapy and also showcase the abilities of those living with often debilitating injuries.
The Stoke Mandeville Games (named after the London hospital where the patients were treated) took place in London 1948, on the very same day as the London Olympic Opening Ceremony, with 16 service men and women taking part in an archery competition. This was a historic and symbolic moment in disability sport.
The Stoke Mandeville Games grew into an international event for spinal injury patients and by the 1950s had acquired the nickname of the ‘paralympics’ . In the following years more and more of the athletes competing were no longer patients themselves but were outside of the hospital system and leading independent lives. In coming years the games became not only about individuals competing against each other, but rather national teams of athletes representing their countries. At the same time the games became a more organised and professional sporting movement, as funding and support for para-athletes increased and the event became more well known.
The Olympics and Paralympics combine
The marriage of the Olympics with the Paralympics was gradual. Days after the Rome Games in 1960, 400 athletes with disabilities gathered to compete in a number of sporting events. In 1976 the first Paralympic winter competition was held following the Winter Olympics in Sweden and included an opening and closing ceremony. Organisers of the Paralympics came up against many barriers to inclusion in the early years, like Olympic Village facilities that were not fit for purpose for people with disability (there were no lifts at the Rome games) and lack of funding.
Finally the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee reached an agreement to host both events at the same time , with the first official Paralympics held alongside the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics.
Today the Paralympics and the Olympics take place together at both the Summer and Winter events. Countries bidding to host both events must demonstrate that they will provide a barrier-free experience for both Olympic and Paralympic competitors and promote both events as welcoming of diversity and inclusion.
Photo by yaron richman on Unsplash
The impact of the Paralympics
In 2021, the Paralympics will showcase the world’s very best disability athletes across 22 sporting events . However beyond the incredible talent and dedication of the individuals competing, the games have had an immense impact on perceptions of disability at many levels. For instance, when China was invited to send competitors to the 1960 Stoke Mandeville Games in Rome, the official statement was that disability simply did not exist there . By 1983, there was a Chinese Sports Association for Disabled Athletes established and a small national team was sent to the 1984 Paralympics in New York. Fast forward to Athens 2004 and the Chinese Paralympic team came first overall, demonstrating the significant shift in attitude that had occured over a few decades. In 2021, China sent 251 athletes to the Paralympic games to compete in 20 of the 22 sports.
But the success of the Paralympic movement lies not only in the increasing numbers of athletes competing at the games but also in fostering a spirit of inclusion. A new global campaign will launch at the Tokyo Paralympic Games to promote disability visibility, diversity and inclusion across the world. The campaign, entitled #WeThe15 brings together international organisations from across different industries like sport, the arts, business and policy makers to shine a light on the 15% of the world’s population that live with a disability. The campaign calls out the different ways that people with disability experience discrimination and ableism at all levels of society.
The Paralympic movement has successfully integrated disability sport into the mainstream arena, raising awareness of the physical, social and structural barriers that exist for people with disabilities. Despite this, there are some ongoing challenges to inclusion even within the movement, with some critics suggesting that there are inequalities between athletes with a physical disability and those with intellectual disabilities. While athletes with intellectual disabilities competed in the Sydney 2000 games, t hey were removed from the schedule for a number of years to return again in London 2012 . It appears there is still a way to go.
The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games
These games will be another much needed form of escapism this year for those stuck once again at home.
The calibre and dedication of all the Olympic and Paralympic athletes has been amazing to see in light of all the challenges faced and the most wonderful form of escapism for our times.
Cover photo by Steven Lelham on Unsplash
Pia Bansagi
Leave a reply cancel reply.
Your email address will not be published.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
You might be interested in
How Remote Work Creates New Opportunities for People With Disabilities
An official website of the United States government
The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.
The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.
- Publications
- Account settings
Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .
- Advanced Search
- Journal List
- BMJ Open Access
Inclusion of persons with disability in sport: part 1 – rights and challenges in Qatar
Sanaa taha al-harahsheh.
1 World Innovation Summit for Health, Research and Content Department, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar
Kamilla Swart
2 College of Science and Engineering, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar
Josélia Neves
3 College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar
Sabika Shaban
4 College of Islamic Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Ad Dawhah, Qatar
Associated Data
bjsports-2022-106224supp001.pdf
Sport is considered a powerful tool to foster social inclusion and improve the well-being of persons with disabilities (PWDs). While it can place people on equitable social footing, 1 PWDs remain under-represented in sport and physical activities compared with their peers without disabilities.
The participation of PWDs in sport is influenced by the type and severity of disability. Those with learning disabilities or with profound and multiple disabilities have the lowest participation levels. 1 Globally, disability rates are rising dramatically, presently estimated at over 1 billion people—including 190 million people (3.8%) who experience significant difficulties in functioning. 2 In Qatar, census data estimates 1.2% of the population have a disability, with 232 athletes registered at the Qatar Paralympic Committee (QPC). 3 However, it is important to note that defining and operationalising disability remains a challenge despite significant progress in measurement. Qatar has around 1.3 million employees, mostly young, healthy men, and uses a narrow definition of disability when estimating the number of PWDs. Therefore, the Washington Group Questions should be adopted in the future to measure PWDs more accurately. 4
Over the past few decades, the State of Qatar has achieved tangible progress in catering to the needs of PWDs. For example, various projects, initiative and programmes that accommodate to the needs of PWDs, while protecting their basic human rights were developed. Furthermore, the QPC is not only committed to enabling para-athletes to achieve sporting excellence but also to developing sport opportunities for all PWDs in Qatar (beginner to elite). 5 This editorial reflects on how sport and physical activities affect PWDs in Qatar and the obstacles to their participation.
Disability rights: inclusion and sport
As a form of social engagement, sport participation is a fundamental human right supported by many international and national policies, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), the UNESCO’s KAZAN Action Plan, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Qatar Law No. 2 for 2004 and the 2019 Doha Declaration (See table 1 ). Qatar, like every state, has an obligation to take proactive and appropriate measures to ensure that PWDs participate in all aspects of society on an equitable basis. The rights of PWDs were also emphasised in the Qatar National Vision 2030, and in the first (2011–2016) and second (2018–2022) Qatar National Development Strategies. Although Qatar has taken important steps to promote and protect the rights of PWDs, challenges persist and PWDs remain under-represented in all forms of cultural life, including sport.
A summary of the international and national policies supporting the rights and needs of persons with disabilities (PWDs)
Disability and sport
In this editorial, the term disability sport is used to refer to all sport, physical activity, recreation and leisure for and involving PWDs, including adaptive sport or parasport. 6 Adapted physical activity is found in different application areas, including inclusive and specialised physical education, competitive sport and recreational physical activity; and can be placed on par with mainstream modalities.
Adapted modalities
The QPC is responsible for managing participation at the Paralympics and other international competitions as well as for providing opportunities for PWDs in Qatar to participate in sport at all levels. The Paralympics is an international sporting event in which para-athletes compete in six disability groups (amputee, cerebral palsy, visual impairment, spinal cord injuries, intellectual disability and ‘les autres’—any disability that does not fall into any of the other categories). The Paralympic movement recognises 10 impairment types and para-athletes are divided further into classes depending on the type and extent of their disabilities. 7
The International Paralympic Committee serves as an umbrella organisation that represents all sports with disability. It supports 200-plus members, including 182 national Paralympic committees (of which QPC is 1), 4 Paralympic sport federations (boccia, sitting volleyball, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby) and 4 international organisations of sport for disability that focus on grassroots sport development, viz CP-ISRA (cerebral palsy), IBSA (vision impairment), IWAS (wheelchair and amputee) and Virtus (intellectual impairment), among others (see online supplemental file ).
Supplementary data
Benefits of sport.
The benefits of sport are universal for all including those with disabilities. Through sport, PWDs can advance social inclusion, health and life skills. 8 It fosters social and psychological well-being by providing opportunities for friendship, a sense of self and meaning and purpose in life. It positively affects the way PWDs perceive their bodies, leading to better mood states, less stress and increased self-esteem. 9 It develops social belonging, improved communication and better coping with the stigma associated with disability. 10 Despite these universal benefits, PWDs still face various barriers to participating in sport and other physical activities.
Challenges and constraints
Factors that hinder sport participation by PWDs are summarised here into three categories. 9 Intrapersonal constraints involve psychological conditions that are internal to the individual (eg, personality, attitudes, mood, stress and perceived self-skill). Interpersonal constraints arise from interactions with other members of society. Structural constraints include factors such as the lack of opportunities and accessibility or the cost of activities that result from external conditions in the environment. Additionally, the global COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant influence on sport and physical activity, leading to the closure of sport and physiotherapy facilities and spaces. It also resulted in the unprecedented delay of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the cancellation of athletic activities at every level, directly limiting the social opportunities and advantages of global, regional and local sporting events for PWDs. 11
In Qatar, it is difficult to produce evidence-based policies due to the lack of adequate data on disabilities. Pockets of data gathered by scattered entities, combined with dated or scant figures from previous censuses, have led to the disability community failing to receive due support, whether at the local or global scale. 12
Recognising these barriers and challenges creates an undeniable opportunity to effect change. Qatar has progressed through several formative stages and is currently ripe with prospects for advancing to an inclusive nation. Moving forward, evidence should be generated to better describe the current state of disability and inclusion in sport within Qatar. National and international organisations must also work together to increase the opportunities and access of PWDs to sporting activities. Governments have an important role to play in supporting such initiatives, increasing funding and promoting awareness for the importance of sport participation by PWDs.
Acknowledgments
This article is part of a series commissioned by the BJSM for the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) 2022. The BJSM peer reviewed, edited and made the decision to publish. The series, including open access fees, is funded by WISH, which is an initiative of the Qatar Foundation.
Correction notice: This article has been corrected since it published Online First. The second affiliation has been updated.
Contributors: All authors contributed to the conceptual development of the paper and revising of drafts and approved the final draft.
Funding: This paper is funded by World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar.
Competing interests: None declared.
Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Supplemental material: This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.
Ethics statements
Patient consent for publication.
Not applicable.
Ethics approval
Disability and Sports
- The Paralympic Games and the Promotion of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, by Sir Philip Craven
- UNESCO International Charter of Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport ( English , French , Spanish )
- Resources on disability and sports (publications, websites, major disability-related sporting events)
- Youth depart UN leadership camp with plans to use sport to tackle social issues
- Panel Discussion on Sports for Inclusive Development: Sports, Disability and Development: Key to empowerment of persons with disabilities and their communities , United Nations Headquarters, New York, 27 June 2011.
The unique ability of sports to transcend linguistic, cultural and social barriers makes it an excellent platform for strategies of inclusion and adaptation. Furthermore, the universal popularity of sport and its physical, social and economic development benefits make it an ideal tool for fostering the inclusion and well-being of persons with disabilities.
Persons with disabilities often face societal barriers and disability evokes negative perceptions and discrimination in many societies. As a result of the stigma associated with disability, persons with disabilities are generally excluded from education, employment and community life which deprives them of opportunities essential to their social development, health and well-being. In some societies persons with disabilities are considered dependent and seen as incapable, thus fostering inactivity which often causes individuals with physical disabilities to experience restricted mobility beyond the cause of their disability.
Sport can help reduce the stigma and discrimination associated with disability because it can transforms community attitudes about persons with disabilities by highlighting their skills and reducing the tendency to see the disability instead of the person. Through sport, persons without disabilities interact with persons with disabilities in a positive context forcing them to reshape assumptions about what persons with disabilities can and cannot do.
Sport changes the person with disability in an equally profound way by empowering persons with disabilities to realize their full potential and advocate for changes in society. Through sport, persons with disabilities acquire vital social skills, develop independence, and become empowered to act as agents of change. Sport teaches individuals how to communicate effectively as well as the significance of teamwork and cooperation and respect for others. Sport is also well-suited to reducing dependence and developing greater independence by helping persons with disabilities to become physically and mentally stronger. These skills can be transferred into other new arenas including employment and advocacy work further helping to build self-sufficiency.
The power of sport as a transformative tool is of particular importance for women as women with disabilities often experience double discrimination on the basis of their gender and disability. It is reported that 93% of women with disabilities are not involved in sport and women comprise only one-third of athletes with disabilities in international competitions. By providing women with disabilities the opportunity to compete and demonstrate their physical ability, sport can help to reduce gender stereotypes and negative perceptions associated with women with disabilities.
Moreover, by improving the inclusion and well-being of persons with disabilities, sport can also help to advance the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). For example, sports-based opportunities can help achieve the goal of universal primary education (MDG2) by reducing stigma preventing children with disabilities from attending school; promote gender equality (MDG3) by empowering women and girls with disabilities to acquire health information, skills, social networks, and leadership experience; and lead to increased employment and lower levels of poverty and hunger (MDG1) by helping to reduce stigma and increase self-confidence.
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is the first legally binding international instrument to address the rights of persons with disabilities and sport. Article 30 of the Convention addresses both mainstream and disability-specific sport and stipulates that “States Parties shall take appropriate measures to encourage and promote the participation, to the fullest extent possible, of persons with disabilities in mainstream sporting activities at all levels”. It also calls upon Governments, States party to the Convention, to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to sport and recreational venues — as spectators and as active participants. This also requires that children with disabilities be included in physical education within the school system “to the fullest extent possible” and enjoy equal access to “play, recreation and leisure and sporting activities”.
Resources on disability and sports
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Article 30 – Participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport
General Assembly Resolution: Sport as a means to promote education, health, development and peace (A/RES/69/6)
International Disability in Sport Working Group Sport in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities International Platform on Sport and Development (2008)
National Disability Authority Promoting the Participation of People with Disabilities in Physical Activity and Sport in Ireland
Sport for Development and Peace Working Group International Working Group: Harnessing the Power of Sport for Development and Peace: Recommendations to Government (2008) Chapter Five: Sport and Persons with Disabilities: Fostering Inclusion and Well-Being
World Health Organization Young People with Disability in Physical Education/ Physical Activity/Sport In and Out of Schools: Technical Report for the World Health Organization
Rights to Participate in Sport, Recreation and Play Websites:
Cerebral Palsy International Sports & Recreation Association
Disabled Sports USA
Handicap International
International Blind Sports Federation
International Federation of Adapted Physical Activity
International Paralympic Committee
International Platform on Sport and Development
International Sports Federation for Persons with Intellectual Disability (INAS-FID)
International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Federation (IWAS)
Rick Hansen Foundation
Sports and Physical Activity for Persons with Disabilities- Awareness, Understanding, Action
United Nations Sport for Development and Peace – Sport and Persons with Disabilities Thematic Working Group Major disability-related sporting events include:
Deaflympics – Ban Ki-moon about 18th Winter Deaflympics
Disability Commonwealth Games
Paralympic Games
Special Olympics
Our Mandates
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Disability and Accessibility
Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of the Human Rights Council
DESA Forum on Disability and Development
Expert Group Meetings
International Day of Persons with Disabilities - 3 December
UN Voluntary Fund on Disability
History of disability and the United Nations
Frequently Asked Questions
Working at the United Nations
Handbook for Parliamentarians
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Overview
Chapter 2: In detail
Chapter 3: Monitoring
Chapter 4: Becoming a party
Chapter 5: National legislation
Chapter 6: Implementing the Convention
Chapter 7: Creating national institutions
Annex I: Convention
Annex II: Optional Protocol
Sustainable Development Goals
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Disability
- Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Global Action
Final draft of the outcome document for the UN Summit for sustainable development
Priority themes
Disability, accessibility and sustainable urban development
Monitoring and evaluation of disability-inclusive development
Women and girls with disabilities
Disasters and emergency situations
Mental health and development
Refugees and migrants with disabilities
Accessible tourism for all
Indigenous persons with disabilities
Development and human rights
Disability and sports
Financing for disability-inclusive development
Disability and the UN
The UN and Disabled Persons -The First Fifty Years
Subscribe to our Newsletter
General Assembly Reports and Resolutions
Security Council
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
Commission for Social Development
Human Rights Council
Inter-Agency Support Group for the CRPD
Regional Commissions
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Handbook for Parliamentarians on the CRPD
UN Expert Group Meetings
Toolkit on Disability for Africa
Cosp sessions.
Fifteenth Session 2022
Fourteenth session 2021
Thirteenth Session 2020
Twelfth Session 2019
Eleventh session 2018
Tenth session 2017
Ninth session 2016
Eighth session 2015
Seventh session 2014
Sixth session 2013
Fifth session 2012
Fourth session 2011
Third session 2010
Second session 2009
First session 2008
CRPD Homepage
NGO/CSO/DPO Participation
List of NGOs accredited to the Conference of States Parties
NGOs in Consultative Status with ECOSOC - Search
How to apply for NGO Consultative Status with ECOSOC
Conference of States Parties to the CRPD
Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Ratifications and Signatures of the CRPD and Optional Protocol
Map of Signatures and Ratifications
Status of Ratification Interactive Dashboard
Monitoring of Implementation
Civil Society
Convention in Brief
Timeline of Convention Events
Frequently Asked Questions on the Convention
Negotiation Archives
Featured: World Enabled , Women's Refugee Commission (disabilities section), Disabled People's International (DPI), G3ict , GAATES , International Disability Alliance (IDA), International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC), Rehabilitation International , Zero Project .
IDPD annual observances
NEW>> IDPD 2022
IDPD Main Page
Calendar by Year
Special envoy and covid-19.
Information from the UN System Everyone is talking about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Be sure to get your facts from reliable sources. The UN offices, field missions, agencies, funds and programmes are providing new information as it becomes available. Here are some of their resource pages .
- Fraud Alert
- Privacy Notice
- Terms of Use
Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.
To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser .
Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.
- We're Hiring!
- Help Center
Disability, sport and physical activity. A critical review.
Related Papers
Brett Smith
Objectives: Sport and exercise psychology has recently expanded into how it can be utilized to enable social missions like activism. No research, however, has examined activist identities among disabled, elite athletes. This article is the first to engage with this new and complex issue by examining narratives of activism amongst elite athletes with impairment and their adoption/rejection of various activist identities. Methods: Thirty-six people were recruited using maximum variation and criterion-based purposive sampling strategies. Data was collected using interviews and fieldwork observations (e.g., observation and social media material). The large data set was rigorously analyzed using a narrative thematic analysis. Results: All participants adopted an athletic identity and an athletic activist identity. A small group also adopted a political activist identity that was concerned with challenging disablism. The athletes' reasons for adopting or eschewing activist identities are identified and connections made to organizational stressors, interpellation, feeling, emotional regulation, narrative, habitus, health and wellbeing. Also revealed is the impact that sporting retirement had on activist identity construction. Conclusions: The article makes a novel research contribution by revealing two different activist identities within the context of disability sport and what social functions each identity might serve. It also significantly develops knowledge by revealing various organizational stressors experienced by disabled athletes, the importance of embodied feelings and emotional regulation in activist identity construction, the damage that social oppression can have on wellbeing following sporting retirement, and the positive possibilities retiring may have for developing different identities. Practical suggestions are as well offered. Crown
Disability and Rehabilitation
Monna Arvinen-Barrow
Disability & Society
Gayle McPherson
AUC KINANTHROPOLOGICA
Gavin Breslin
Daniel Jackson
The 2012 Paralympics was the biggest ever, the most accessible and best attended in its 64-year history. The Paralympics and ideas of disability associated with the Games provide significant opportunity for reflection on how far societal opinions, attitudes and behaviour have changed regarding disability. In 2012 – the first ever “legacy games” – an explicit aim of the Paralympics was to “transform the perception of disabled people in society”, (Channel 4), and use sport to contribute to “a better world for all people with a disability” (IPC 2011). The 2012 Games therefore came with a social agenda: to challenge the current perceptions many people have about disability and disability sport. Within this report – commissioned by the UK’s Paralympic broadcaster, Channel 4 – we consider everyday experiences of disability and disability sport within the context of the London 2012 Paralympics and televised coverage of the Games. The analysis is based 140 in-depth interviews that took place in the UK over a period of eighteen months, during the lead up to, and immediately after, the Games: between January 2011 and September 2012. Embedded in the lifeworld of our participants, we ask whether the 2012 Paralympics was successful in changing perceptions of disability.
Danielle Peers
In this thesis, I use Foucault’s methods of discourse analysis and genealogy, and my own experiences as a Paralympic athlete, to analyze and critique the power relations of the Paralympic Movement. In Chapter 1, I contextualize my study by discussing relevant literature in Critical Disability Studies, Sociology of Sport and Adapted Physical Activity, and by introducing my methodological and epistemological frameworks. In Chapter 2, I analyze two historical accounts of the Paralympic Movement to demonstrate how they discursively represent, reproduce and justify Paralympic power relations. In Chapters 3 through 5, I use genealogy to critique Paralympic power relations: analyzing their systems of differentiation, types of objectives, instrumental modes, forms of institutionalization and degrees of rationalization. This analysis brings to the forefront how discourses of empowerment reproduce, justify and conceal the increasingly rationalized structures that enable Paralympic experts to act upon the actions, bodies and identities of those experiencing disabilities.
Rebecca Peake
European Journal for Sport and Society
Drawing upon ethnographic research conducted with the England Visually Impaired Cricket Team, this article considers the extent to which participation in visually impaired cricket is an empowering practice. The topic of empowerment and disability sport are well debated; yet, the context of visually impaired cricket provides an original perspective. Using an embodied theoretical approach to disability sport, the participants’ experiences of recreational visually impaired cricket and their transition to the elite national team are investigated to understand the multifaceted ways that empowerment is experienced. There is a specific focus upon how disability sport affects the participants’ conceptualization and negotiation of their corporeality through the concepts of embodied reconceptualization of self and the restored self. Despite the players’ empowering experiences, this article evaluates the consequences of forming an ever-closer relationship with the mainstream game and how the elite organizational approach to visually impaired cricket, introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), has irreversibly changed the empowering potential of the game.
RELATED TOPICS
- We're Hiring!
- Help Center
- Find new research papers in:
- Health Sciences
- Earth Sciences
- Cognitive Science
- Mathematics
- Computer Science
- Academia ©2024
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Disabled Sports Essay. When one looks at the word “disability”, it immediately conjures up an idea of what someone cannot do, or something physically wrong with an individual, that prevents them from doing something as the majority of society can do. When society looks at a person with a disability, society relates or compares them to what ...
For example, the management of the game of Tennis for persons with disabilities sport is carried out by the International Tennis Federation. Persons with disabilities are accorded equal opportunities to compete at the international level during major global sporting meetings. For instance, the “Paralympics Game, Special Olympics World Games ...
In front of this backdrop it is better to understand why this volume titled ‘Inclusion in Sport: Disability and Participation’ contains not only articles about options of sporting activities for people with disabilities together with non-disabled peers and competitors (e.g. the papers from Valet; Meziani), but also contributions that ...
This special issue focuses on “managing disability sport” rather than the medical, human performance or sociocultural issues facing people with disability. The collection of papers herein focus on management issues that centre on constraints to sport participation, supply side attributes, participant behaviours, consumption of disability ...
Days after the Rome Games in 1960, 400 athletes with disabilities gathered to compete in a number of sporting events. In 1976 the first Paralympic winter competition was held following the Winter Olympics in Sweden and included an opening and closing ceremony. Organisers of the Paralympics came up against many barriers to inclusion in the early ...
Papers in the issue The papers included in the special edition begin to examine some of the spectrum of organisational issues related to managing disability sport such as participant behaviour, constraints to participation and access, supply side characteristics, policy implementation, sponsor congruence to disability sport, and spectatorship ...
Disability rights: inclusion and sport. As a form of social engagement, sport participation is a fundamental human right supported by many international and national policies, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), the UNESCO’s KAZAN Action Plan, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Qatar ...
Sport changes the person with disability in an equally profound way by empowering persons with disabilities to realize their full potential and advocate for changes in society. Through sport ...
Moreover, 344 f Disability, sport and physical activity participants are able to use their bodies and the space around them to “show” rather than just “tell” about their lives (p. 99). N Furthermore, researchers for certain purposes might consider using what has been termed IO mobile methods (Ross et al. 2009).