Disability, Masculinity, Militarism: The Paralympics and the Cultural (Re-)production of the Para-athlete-soldier

Abstract

In this paper, we unpack the body politic of the para-athlete-soldier and its positioning within masculinizing, militarized, national, popular cultural discourses. Drawing on an integrated methodological approach that explored the media production, representation and consumption of the 2016 Paralympics, we focus on the inscription of a disabled masculinity onto the bodies of ex-military personnel that inculcate normative notions of heterosexuality and the neoliberal (‘inclusive’) national and ableist body politic. The data set indicate that the hyper- and hypo-visibility of Paralympians construct inclusive cultural collective imaginaries around disability inclusion and the ‘progressive’ state whilst at the same time structuring forms of disciplinary exclusion. We conclude that the gendered, technologized and commodified bodies [Pullen, E. & Silk, M. 2020. Gender, Technology and the Ablenational Paralympic Body Politic. Cultural Studies, 34(3):466–88] of National Paralympic bodies offers compelling insights into contemporary disability biopolitics where sport, militarization, gender and the neoliberal national body intersect.

KEYWORDS:

• Paralympics
• disability
• media
• nationalism
• masculinity
• neoliberalism

Notes on contributors

Dr Emma Pullen is a lecturer at Loughborough University. Her research is focused on the politics of disability, broadcasting and sports media consumption, and gender studies.

Correspondence to: Dr Emma Pullen, School of Sport Exercise and Health Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, UK. Email: [email protected]

Professor Michael Silk is a professor of Physical Cultural Studies at Bournemouth University. His research is interdisciplinary and focuses on the various relationships between sport & physical activity (physical culture), mediated spectacles, and the politics of urban spaces.

Notes

1 This paper forms part of a wider Arts and Humanities funded project (AH/P003842/1) that brings together production interviews, audience focus groups and a National representative survey, quantitative content analysis and qualitative textual analysis, archival analysis, and public pedagogic forms (including a series of performances / documentary film).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant number AH/P003842/1].