P. David Howe

The (In)validity of Supercrip Representation of Paralympian Athletes

This article provides a critical overview of the viability of the “supercrip” iconography as an appropriate representation of Paralympic athletes. It focuses on its validity as a vehicle for the empowerment of individuals with impairments both within the context of elite sport and broader society. This type of representation may be seen by the able moral majority as enlightened. However, supercrip narratives may have a negative impact on the physical and social development of disabled individuals by reinforcing what could be termed “achievement syndrome”—the impaired are successful in spite of their disability. The authors will focus on the implications of the use of language and images embodied in supercrip iconography, relying on examples of two European Paralympic awareness campaigns disseminated through mainstream media.

AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF PAIN AND INJURY IN PROFESSIONAL RUGBY UNION The Case of Pontypridd RFC

In the professional game of Rugby Union the elimination of injury to players has become a paramount performative, and therefore financial, concern. The recognition that professional contact sports entail the potential for significant injury is becoming increasingly evident in the disciplines of sports medicine and the sociology of sport. Among the complex of factors that comprise the habitus of a rugby club will be the expectation and accommodation of factors relating to injury. This article makes conceptual distinctions between pain and injury. Much of the extant literature of pain and injury uses qualitative interview techniques to good effect. This article uses the methodology of participant observation to offer a more felicitous social understanding of pain and injury in a distinctive sporting context. Ethnographic research was undertaken at Pontypridd Rugby Football Club in Wales over a period of two years. This approach enables an increased diachronic understanding of pain and injury within this particular sporting context and how the personal and social experience of these phenomena are transformed through the process of professionalization.

Cyborg and supercrip: the Paralympics technology and the (dis)empowerment of disabled athletes.

Over the last two decades the Paralympic Games have gained a high public profile. As a result there has been an ever increasing commercial marketplace for aerodynamic and feather light racing (wheel)chairs as well as biomechanically and ergonomically responsive prostheses that have helped create a legion of cyborg bodies that is manifest in the image of the sporting supercrip. Mobility devices that enhance performance have also created a divide between different impairment groups and also amongst ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ nations. This article highlights the development of a technocentric ideology within the Paralympic Movement that has led to the cyborgification of some Paralympic bodies. It questions whether the advances in technology are actually empowering disabled athletes.

From Inside the Newsroom Paralympic Media and the `Production' of Elite Disability

It has long been understood that the media has the power to shape the representation of social issues and effectively manage the understanding that the public has of the world. Control of information in media centres at major sporting events such as the Paralympic Games is vital if agencies such as the International Paralympic Committee and national affiliates such as the British Paralympic Association are to properly manage the image of elite sport for the disabled. Information that print journalists receive in this environment is already highly mediated and the added influence of editors who often have strong views as to what is appropriate for their target audience means that the final published product often is devoid of cultural understanding of Paralympic sport. As such the shaping of printed media texts related to sport for the disabled is not distinct from the mainstream. However, while there have been numerous studies exploring the media representation of Paralympic athletes, there has been no critical discussion surrounding the actual production of printed media texts around this community. Using ethnographic and anthropological approaches, this article attempts to address this lacuna by researching the lived experience of these media production processes.

The conceptual boundaries of sport for the disabled: Classification and athletic performance

This article is a tentative attempt to shed some philosophical light on the complex process of classification and competitive categorization in sport for the disabled. Disabled athletes are typically grouped together for competition in classes according to their functional ability. Similarly disabled athletes compete together in the same categories on the dual premise of fair competition and equal opportunity to compete. In the Paralympic Games, the flagship of sport for the disabled, the elite athletes compete in a wide range of sports and competitive categories on an international stage. Classification and competitive categories in sport for the disabled are of current interest because of the commercially induced pressure to streamline the Paralympic Games by reducing the number of competitive categories on its program. This raises concerns about creating unfair competitions. In this article we examine the principles and processes of classification against the dominant ideological backdrop of fair and equitable contest in sport. We argue that despite strict adherence to an ethic of fairness, governing bodies in their attempt to provide equitable classification must strike a balance between facilitating the opportunity to demonstrate worthy athletic performance in meaningful contests, on the one hand, and avoiding unfair meaningless no contests, on the other. This balance must be struck against the additional complication of promoting marketable competitive sport for elite disabled athletes and providing inclusive integrative opportunities for the wider community of disabled people.

Empower, inspire, achieve: (dis)empowerment and the Paralympic Games

This paper undertakes a critical examination of the International Paralympic Committee’s desire to use the Paralympic Games as a vehicle to empower individuals with a disability. We achieve this by applying Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological concepts of habitus and capital to semi-structured interviews conducted with Paralympic stakeholders. Interviewees included current and former Paralympians, active and retired disability sport administrators, social researchers of disability and disability sport, and disability rights advocates. The paper starts by highlighting the distinctive cultural context of the Paralympic Movement, before exploring the potential for the Paralympic Games to act as a source of empowerment, through the creation of sporting and lifestyle role-models. Findings suggest Paralympians are considered most likely to gain empowerment from the Paralympic Games, yet their specific impairment, athletic lifestyles and failure to identify as ‘disabled’ were identified as potentially limiting the ability of the Paralympic Games to empower others.

An exploration of the co-production of performance running bodies and natures within "Running Taskscapes"

This article explores the interrelationship between particular “natural” spaces and the production of middle- and long-distance performance running bodies. It argues that running bodies and nature are actively co-produced, thus blurring the commonly made distinction between the “social” and the “natural”. In doing so, the article extends the geography of sports literature by adopting a “post-constructivist” perspective on nature as elucidated in Tim Ingolds concepts of “dwelling” and “taskscape”. This illuminates the (re)production of sporting bodies through the materiality of nature and in turn contributes to research on embodiment within sports studies that highlights the importance of space and the natural environment. The article draws on ethnographic material and textual sources to illuminate the running taskscape associated with the production of performance running bodies and highlights how three forms and functions of nature are co-produced through this mode of dwelling.

Disability [sport] and discourse:Stories within the Paralympic legacy

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.

Reflexive ethnography, impairment and the pub

This research note is a call to scholars, particularly those with impairments, working in the social sciences to be more actively engaged in the use of reflexive ethnography in leisure spaces. The nature of ethnographic research places the social scientist in a privileged position. On the one hand there is a need to transfer knowledge to the academic community, but on the other this should not occur as a result of the exploitation of the people under investigation. Using a reflexive ethnographic vignette of a visit to a public house, this note illustrates how, by using our bodies in leisure spaces as the focus of research, scholars with impairments can eliminate some of the ethical concerns that surround more traditional methods of ethnography. Ultimately, this note argues that by adopting a phenomenological stance we can gain a better understanding of the degree to which disablism is still present within leisure spaces and society more generally.

Are we fit yet? English adolescent girls’ experiences of health and fitness apps

ABSTRACT In recent years, society has witnessed a proliferation of digital technologies facilitate new ways to monitor young people’s health. This paper explores a group of English adolescent girls’ understandings of ‘health’ promoted by health and fitness related technologies. Five focus group meetings with the same 8 girls, aged between 14 and 17, were conducted to explore their experiences of using health and fitness apps. The girls’ understandings of the digitised body are examined through a Foucauldian lens, with particular attention to conceptualisations of bio-power and technologies of the self. The data reveal how the girls negotiated, and at times critiqued, the multiple health discourses that are manifest through digital health technologies and performative health culture. The results emphasise that individual-based applications (apps) remove the social and interactive elements of physical activity valued by the girls. This research highlights the possibilities digital technologies provide for health promotion, yet also illuminates the limitations of these technologies if used uncritically and inappropriately.