Contested perspectives of ‘marvel’ and ‘mockery’ in disability and sport: Accra, Ghana

Abstract

In the past, persons with disabilities and the relationship between disability and sports were excluded from discussions of development. Within the past 15 years, however, there has been a proliferation of ‘development through sport’ initiatives and a widespread promotion of the intended and unintended outcomes of participation in sport for persons living in low- and middle-income countries. From the vantage point of development studies, and drawing on qualitative research methods, this article examines sport as a vehicle for the human development of persons with disabilities in a Ghanaian community. It presents the athletes as active agents, and highlights their engagement in daily struggles and strategies to be respected and recognized in both sport and society, as well as links their efforts to questions of marvel and mockery. The setting is the city of Accra, Ghana, and the athletes are female and male athletes of the Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) through their graduate student fellowship. She also wants to express her deep appreciation of the assistance provided by Ghanaian research assistant Sarah Andrews, without whose help this research would not have completed.

Notes

¹ ‘Low- and middle-income countries’ is used instead of ‘developing country’ or Global South, given that such classification by income does not necessarily reflect development status. See Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group Secretariat, ‘Sport as a Means to Foster Inclusion’, 128.

² United Nations, Sport for Development and Peace.

³ Van Eekeren, ‘Sport and Development’, 19.

⁴ See Kidd, ‘New Social Movement’; Donnelly, ‘Sport and Human Rights’; Giulianotti, ‘Human Rights’.

⁵ United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report; Sen, Development as Freedom.

⁶ Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group Secretariat, ‘Sport as a Means to Foster Inclusion’, 124.

⁷ ‘Supercrip’ is a term which depicts disabled persons as heroic in light of their (cap)ability to perform acts normally deemed not possible for PWD or their (cap)ability to live a ‘regular’ life in spite of disability, as such it has been said to promote ‘ableism’. Hardin and Hardin, ‘The “Supercrip” in Sport Media’.

⁸ Brittain, ‘Perceptions of Disability’, 443.

⁹ Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2009. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4a1fade9c.html.

¹⁰ British Broadcasting Corporation, Country Profile.

¹¹ City Population, Regions, Maps, Urban Localities; British Broadcasting Corporation, Country Profile.

¹² Reuters Africa, ‘Obama's Speech on Africa in Ghana's Capital’.

¹³ Right To Play, Ghana Newsletter 2.

¹⁴ The Statesman [Accra], July 30, 2007.

¹⁵ Konadu-Agyemang, ‘The Best of Times, 474.

¹⁶ Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled, About Us.

¹⁷ Ghana Society for the Physically Disabled Sports Wing, www.gspdsportswing.com. The Association of Sports for the Disabled national office is located on the third floor of Accra's recently renovated national football stadium. There are no ramps. There are no elevators.

¹⁸ Nepveux, ‘In the Same Soup’.

¹⁹ Hargreaves, Heroines of Sport, 185.

²⁰ Emmett and Alant, ‘Women and Disability’, 445; Edmonds, Disabled People and Development; Department for International Development, ‘Disability’; Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group Secretariat, ‘Sport and Persons With Disabilities’, 178.

²¹ Groce, ‘Women with Disabilities in the Developing World’; Traustadottir, ‘Part II; Obstacles to Equality’. The majority of the women shared their encounters and experiences with such stereotypes during the female focus group discussion.

²² McKay, Messner, and Sabo, Masculinities, 9.

²³ Sport for Development and Peace International Working Group Secretariat, ‘Sport as a Means to Foster Inclusion’, 131. Of course, gender is only one such category, class, race and ethnicity also deserve mention, however, their in-depth consideration proved beyond the scope of this article.

²⁴ Davis directs the bulk of his attention to the construction of normalcy, he claims that the ‘problem’ is not with persons with disabilities. At issue, rather, is the way that the construction of normalcy creates the ‘problem’ of the disabled person (Davis, The Diability Reader).

²⁵ Nixon, ‘Constructing Diverse Sports Opportunities’, 111.

²⁶ Jarvie, Sport, Culture, and Society, 291. Unfortunately, typical of the role disability ought to play, Jarvie's Sport, Culture, and Society is thoroughly bereft of any discussion of disability.

²⁷ Nepveux, ‘In the Same Soup’, 511.

²⁸ Kassah, Begging as a Way of Life.

²⁹ Nepveux, ‘In the Same Soup’, 55.

³⁰ Deal, ‘Disabled People's Attitudes’, 907.

³¹ Jarvie, Sport, Culture, and Society, 287–288.

³² Gerschick, ‘Sisyphus in a Wheelchair’.

³³ Hardin and Hardin, ‘The “Supercrip” in Sport Media’.

³⁴ The Chord 1950, 19 cited in Hargreaves, Heroines of Sport, 181.