Disability [sport] and discourse: Stories within the Paralympic legacy
Authors: Bush, A., Silk, M., Porter, J. and Howe, P.D.
Journal: Reflective Practice
Volume: 14
Issue: 5
Pages: 632-647
eISSN: 1470-1103
ISSN: 1462-3943
DOI: 10.1080/14623943.2013.835721
Abstract:This paper aims to encourage critical reflection on what are key and pressing social and political issues surrounding the Paralympics Games. The focus of the paper is personal narratives of six current elite Paralympic athletes who have participated in at least one Paralympic Games. In response to critical stimuli presented in the form of five 'unfinished stories', the self-reflexive, personal, compelling narrative reflections of these individuals were (re)presented for each of the stories as a composite narrative. The stories expose questions over fear, despair, freedom, hope, love, oppression, hatred, hurt, terror, (in)equality, peace, performance and impairment. To really learn from London and reflect for Rio, we need academic work that can understand sport, sporting bodies and physical activity as important 'sites' through which social forces, discourses, institutions and processes congregate, congeal and are contested in a manner that contributes to the shaping of human relations, subjectivities, and experiences in particular, contextually contingent ways. © 2013 Taylor & Francis.
Source: Scopus
Preferred by: Michael Silk