This research provides a sociological investigation of an elite disability sport
competition known as the Paralympic Games. A quadrennial multi-sport
competition for individuals with specific impairments, the Paralympic Games,
is explored in this thesis through the method of semi-structured interviews.
Individuals interviewed included current and former Paralympians, active and
retired disability sport administrators as well as social researchers of disability
and disability sport. A number of themes surface in this research which
identifies and begins to explore the relationships between the core
constituents which influence the Paralympic Games. Assertions about which
bodies have a legitimate claim to be involved in Paralympic sport, alongside
how impaired bodies are used to create an elite disability sport spectacle,
such as the Paralympic Games, remain contested by members and
organisations that influence, through consensus and conflict, the
development of the Paralympic Movement. The Paralympic Games, of
course, has not developed in isolation, but in the context of wider
developments across sport. In relation to this the positive and negative
influences of the International Olympic Committee upon the Paralympic
Games are considered. At the core of the thesis, critical analysis has been
generated through the use of the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu. In
particular Bourdieu’s related concepts of habitus, capital and field, in
conjunction with previous research into the Paralympic Movement and the
extant literature in the field of disability studies, are used to illuminate the
existence of a Paralympic field. The possible manifestation of a Paralympic
field is explored through the empirical data collected. As a result this thesis
highlights the nexus between the sociology of sport and disability studies.
Through the fusion of these fields, and by grounding them in a robust
theoretical framework, it is hoped that this research will add positively to the
literature in this emerging specialism of the sociology of disability sport
