Global organizational change in sport and the shifting meaning of disability

Abstract

There are 650 million people with disabilities worldwide and 450 million of them are in the global south. They are the largest minority, the poorest and the most marginalized. Sport has underlined the contradictions of prejudice and discrimination and the gap between low expectations and ability. The passage of the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities included Article 30, which defined rights in sport, physical activity and recreation, and shifted the meaning of disability globally. The historical framing of disability as a social welfare issue, charity-based and medically defined, was replaced by a rights-based approach to support inclusion. This Introduction outlines the issues related to disability in sport and physical activity in different cultural settings intersected by gender, race and ethnicity, class and age, and situates the articles that follow.

Acknowledgements

The early part of this work was funded by the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). This collection of papers would not have been possible without the support of a large number of people and the contributing authors I want to thank some of them. Executive Editor, Boria Majumdar for his commitment to global discourse in sport; Review Editor Jessica Robinson for her support and advice; Bruce Kidd and Greg Malszecki for their support and ongoing commitment to inclusive sport, as well as John Davies, Robert Gordon, Marcia Rioux, Melanie Panitch, Rebeccah Bournemann HH Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned and Chair Hassan Ali Bin Ali of the Shafallah Center, Doha, Qatar; and the reviewers. Those whose assistance was essential to make travel and fieldwork feasible: Tommy Lord (Atlanta), Daniele Laumann Hart (Mar del Plata), Lindy Allery (Athens), and Jing Li (Beijing). Student research assistants: Margaret Shalma, Linda Kalbun and Anne-Marie Bourgeois helped make this volume possible, and Raquel Deveza without whose kindness and help I could not live independently.

Notes

¹ Kidd, ‘Human Rights and the Olympic Movement’.

² Statistics Canada, Census, 2001. ‘Prevalence of Disability in Canada’. In 2001, 3.6 million Canadians were living in households reported having disability limitations, which represented disability rate of 12.4%. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-577-x/4151361-eng.htm. Siebers, Disability Theory, 7; Priestley, Disability.

³ In most countries, disability statistics are often unreliable because of the self-reporting nature of the data and the different definitions of disability between and within countries. These factors are considered a challenge to accurate figures in South Africa, but they apply to other countries as well. (1) There are different definitions of disability; (2) dfferent survey technologies are used to collect information; (3) there are negative traditional attitudes towards people with disabilities; (4) there is a poor service infrastructure for people with disabilities in underdeveloped areas; (5) violence levels (in particular areas at particular times) have impeded the collection of data, affecting the overall picture, http://www.independentliving.org/docs5/SANatlDisStrat1.html#anchor4; Braithwaite and Mont, Disability and Poverty, 8; they argue for the need for additional quantitative research, especially in developing countries.

⁴ Often forgotten, but many disabling conditions are rooted in poverty and malnutrition, such as a lack of vitamin A and blindness, vitamin B and beri beri, pellagra and anaemia, vitamin D and rickets, and diabetes.

⁵ United Nations Development Programme, ‘Millennium Development Goals’. They include goals and targets on income poverty, hunger, maternal and child mortality, disease, inadequate shelter, gender inequality, environmental degradation and the Global Partnership for Development, http://www.undp.org/mdg/basics.shtml.

⁶ In the summer of 2011 Scope, the British charity and disability rights organization for the disabled argued that the disabled are often targeted and crimes against the Deaf and disabled in the UK should be classified as hate crimes whereas commonly they are simply overlooked. http://www.scope.org.uk/campaigns/disability-discrimination/disability-hate-crime.

⁷ African Union of the Blind, State of Disabled Peoples Rights in Kenya 2007 Report, 47–48, http://www.yorku.ca/drpi/files/KenyaReport07.pdf.

⁸ Le Clair, ‘Water, Senses and the Experiences of the Pool’.

⁹ Kidd and Donnelly, ‘Human Rights in Sport’;, ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global’; Brysk, Globalization and Human Rights.

¹⁰ United Nations Enable, ‘The Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities. The 2006 UN Convention’, http://www.un.org/disabilities

¹¹ Brock, Global Justice; Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory; Gupta, ‘The Song of the Nonaligned World’; Gupta and Ferguson, ‘Beyond Culture’; Pothier and Devlin, Critical Disability Theory; Kidd, ‘Human Rights and the Olympic Movement’; Kidd and Donnelly, ‘Human Rights in Sport’.

¹² Jarvis, ‘People, Policy and Sports’, http://www.paralympicfoundation.ca/index.cfm/about-us/staff/.

¹³ Spraklen, Hylton, and Long, ‘Managing and Monitoring Equality’.

¹⁴ Hargreaves, Sporting Females; Heroines of Sport .

¹⁵ Sport Canada, ‘The Policy on Sport for Persons with a Disability, 2006’, Canadian Heritage, http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/sc/pol/spt/tdm-eng.cfm.

¹⁶ Variety Village, http://varietyontario.ca/village/index.htm; MukiBaum Treatment Centres, http://www.mukibaum.com/home.php; Shafallah Center, http://www.shafallah.org.qa/cms/english/default.aspx#.

¹⁷ Own the Podium 2010, http://www.ownthepodium2010.com/About/. Across the country the hope was for a ‘three-peat’ with a gold in men's sledge hockey added to the women's and men's gold in non-disabled hockey.

¹⁸ There are no articles from the newly emerging powerhouse of India, South America or related to sport and the impact of environmental degradation, the importance of classification, visual impairment/blindness, sexual orientation (LGBTQ), blindness, asylums and the disabling impact on families, communities and nations of HIV/AIDS. Watermeyer et al in Disability and Social Change discuss the impact of HIV/AIDS on southern Africa. For the total absence of non-work physical activity sport in asylums, see Rheaume, Remembrance of Patients Past.

¹⁹ Parnes and Hashemi, ‘Sport as a Means to Foster Inclusion’.

²⁰ Coakley, Sports in Society.

²¹ Guttman, ‘Sport for the Disabled’.

²² Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 159; The Birth of the Clinic .

²³ Armstrong, ‘Foucault and the Sociology of Health’, 20–21.

²⁴ Smith, ‘Formal Culture’. Smith points out that the repressive regimes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao used fear as a tool of social regulation.

²⁵ Snyder and Mitchell, ‘Re-engaging the Body’.

²⁶ Douglas, Purity and Danger.

²⁷ Edwards, ‘Constructions of Disability in the Ancient Greek World’, 28.

²⁸ Foucault, Power/Knowledge.

²⁹ L.J. Davis, ‘Constructing Normalcy’, 47; Titchkosky and Michalko, Rethinking Normalcy and Reading and Writing Disability Differently.

³⁰ L.J. Davis, ‘Constructing Normalcy’, 10.

³¹ Linton, Claiming Disability, 24.

³² Linton, Claiming Disability, 22.

³³ Kidd, The Struggle for Canadian Sport.

³⁴ Swain and Cameron, ‘Unless Otherwise Stated’, in Samuels, ‘My Body, My Closet’, 237.

³⁵ Samuels, ‘My Body, My Closet’, 237–243.

³⁶ Goffmn, Stigma; Wendell, The Rejected Body.

³⁷ See Classification – Solutions for the Future; Le Clair, ‘Diverse Experiences of the Swimming Classification Process’; Le Clair, ‘Sport and Health’; Le Clair, ‘High Performance Swimming’.

³⁸ Biderman, Wired for Sound; Sparrow, ‘Implants and Ethnocide’.

³⁹ Herr, Koh, and Gostin, Different But Equal; Fujiura, Park, and Rutkowski-Kmitta, ‘Disability Statistics in the Developing World’; Lynnes, Nicholas, and Temple, ‘Fostering Independence in Health-Promoting Exercise’.

⁴⁰ Herr et al., Different but Equal; Solish, Perry, and Minnes, ‘Participation of Children’; Braddock ‘Honouring Eunice Kennedy Shriver's Legacy’.

⁴¹ Goffman, Stigma.

⁴² Mangan, Shaping the Superman.

⁴³ Swartz, ‘Building Disability Research Capacity’; Able-Bodied.

⁴⁴ UN Nations Social and Economic Council, Commission for Social Development. Secretary General Report. February 2010. http://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/reports/csocd48.pdf

⁴⁵ Brenkenridge and Volger, ‘The Critical Limits of Embodiment’. Shakespeare, ‘Disability, Identity and Difference’, 94–113; Titchkosky, Reading and Writing Disability Differently.

⁴⁶ Rioux and Valentine, ‘Does Theory Matter?’, 49.

⁴⁷ Kennedy and Hills, Sport, Media and Society.

⁴⁸ Swimming is a sport that now classifies on the basis of how an athlete functions in the water, regardless of a medical classification, see Le Clair, ‘Diverse Experiences of the Swimming Classification Process’, 2.

⁴⁹ Brittain, The Paralympic Games Explained; Howe, The Cultural Politics of the Paralympic Games; Hums and Maclean, Governance and Policy; Gilbert and Schantz, The Paralympic Games; Legg et al. , ‘Historical Overview of the Paralympics’; Steadward and Petersen, Paralymics; Thomas and Smith, Disability Sport and Society; Wolff, ‘Inclusion of the Sport for Athletes with Disabilities’.

⁵⁰ Linton, Claiming Disability.

⁵¹ South African Aids Council, ‘HIV/AIDS and Disability in South Africa’. May 2008, ii. http://www.icdr.utoronto.ca/Files/PDF/94a3663acf97d5f.pdf

⁵² Lauff, ‘Developing Country Participation’.

⁵³ See www.tidesport.org.

⁵⁴ Xu, Olympic Dreams; Brownell, Beijing's Games; Training the Body for China; 2008 Beijing Paralympics Medal Tally, http://www.china.org.cn/paralympics/node_7052638.htm

⁵⁵ Priestley, Disability, 152.

⁵⁶ Ott, ‘The Sum of its Parts’, 5.

⁵⁷ Diabetes. Posadzki, ‘Prescribing Blackberries’.

⁵⁸ Butryn, ‘Posthuman Podiums’.

⁵⁹ Wheelchair backflops, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = z43PXkvVC5c

⁶⁰ Faulkner, ‘Casing the Joint’.

⁶¹ Thomas and Smith, Disability Sport and Society, 158.

⁶² Sriniasan, Technology Sits Cross-Legged, 328.

⁶³ Sparkes and Smith, ‘Disabled Bodies’; Tator, Catastrophic Injuries; www.thinkfirst.ca; Prowidenza and Tator, ‘Sports Injury Prevention’, 58-78'.

⁶⁴ Theberge, ‘It's Not About Health’. Young, Sporting Bodies.

⁶⁵ Skinner, stresses the importance of health first and medicine second in ‘The Big Idea; Denman et al., The Health Promoting School.

⁶⁶ R.W. Davis, Inclusion Through Sports; Lieberman and Houston-Wilson, Strategies for Inclusion.

⁶⁷ ‘State of Disabled People's Rights in Kenya, 2007’, http://www.yorku.ca/drpi/Kenya07Ch3.html.

⁶⁸ Swartz and Watermeyer, ‘Cyborg Anxiety’.

⁶⁹ Aphramor, ‘Disability and the Anti-Obesity Offensive’; Overweight and Obesity website; http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/index.html; Centers for Disease Control, ‘State Based Programs’, http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/stateprograms/index.html; NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre, ‘Statistics on Obesity, Physical Activity and Diet: England 2010’, http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/opad10/Statistics_on_Obesity_Physical_Activity_and_Diet_England_20

⁷⁰ Editorial. ‘Maternal Health Plan Something of a Start’. Globe and Mail June 25, 2010.

⁷¹ Sampson, ‘Beyond Compassion’, 267–270; Wendell, The Rejected Body.

⁷² Schantz and Gilbert, ‘An Ideal Misconstrued’.

⁷³ Pfister, ‘Islam and Women's Sport’; Hargreaves, ‘Sport Exercise and the Female Muslim Body’.

⁷⁴ See http://brandstagetv.net/ParalympicSportTV/Newsletter/edition06_2010.html

⁷⁵ Lauff, ‘Developing Country Participation’.

⁷⁶ Quoted in Brittain, The Paralympic Games Explained, 110.

⁷⁷ Brittain, The Paralympic Games Explained, 107; ‘Paralympic Games Vancouver 2010’, IPC Official website, http://www.paralympic.org/Paralympic_Games/Past_Games/Vancouver_2010/index.html

⁷⁸ Maloney, ‘A New Image Exposed’, A18; Lenskyj, ‘More Fallen Heroes’.

⁷⁹ Hansen, ‘The World of Dress’.

⁸⁰ Kennedy, The Swimsuit; Hargreaves, ‘Sport, Exercise and the Female Muslim Body’.

⁸¹ Pfister, ‘Islam and Women's Sport’, 13.

⁸² Scott, The Politics of the Veil, especially Chapter 1 ‘The Headscarf Controversies’ and Chapter 4 ‘Individualism’. Often Muslim women are essentialized but hijab has many different meanings, some of them reflecting different identities and sometimes in conflict.

⁸³ Development, Sport and Youth, Cape Town, South Africa, 2006; the FESPIC Games Confernce, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2006; the Festival of International Conferences on Caregiving, Disability, Aging and Technology (FICCDAT), Toronto, Canada, 2007; and formalized at the 2008 International Conference on Sport and Disability held at the Shafallah Centre in Doha, Qatar.