Disability in the Global Sport Arena: A Sporting Chance

Sport is often at the centre of battles for rights to inclusion linked to class, race and gender, and this special issue explores struggles centred on disability in different cultural settings. It challenges oversights and assumptions about the 'normal' body, describes how individual and organizational transformations can occur through sport. The athleticism of a person with a disability is recognized and placed centre stage - instead of the individual being forgotten, excluded, or placed at the margins simply because they have a disability. Making sport inclusive for all affects the accessibility of facilities, the media, as well as perceptions of sponsors and spectators. It also raises more difficult questions about the competition eligibility of 'different' and 'cyborg' bodies, and the lives of the most socially disadvantaged. Addressing these questions which ultimately touch on the real meaning of sport can lead to profound change in people's attitudes, and how sport is organized locally and globally. The growth of the international Paralympic Games, Special Olympics and Deaflympics is examined, as is the approach to disability in sport in both advantaged and resource poor countries. The embodied lives of persons with disabilities are explored utilizing new theoretical models, perspectives and approaches. This book was previously published as a special issue of Sport in Society.