Cripping the Dis§abled Body: Doing the Posthuman Tango in, through and around Sport

Abstract

In this article we elucidate our understanding of the utility of a particular posthumanist lens to expose the fragility of compulsory ablebodiedness. Compulsory ablebodiedness is a central tool of crip theory that shows us how society reproduces disability as an expression of an ableist ideology. This positions those perceived as having ‘less-than-able’ bodies and minds as subaltern. Adopting our methodological position from crip theory, we explore how dis§abled bodies are co-produced along with the environments in which they pursue sport. Interpreting ethnographic data with, in, and around dis§abled bodies, we examine their lived realities and performed identities as biopolitical assemblages that are, at one and the same time, both subject and object in a state of what we term complex dis§able embodiment. The article begins by acknowledging the existence of disablism while also exploring the ideology of ableism, which leads to the social marginalisation of nonnormative bodies. We then articulate dis§ability as a choregraphed tango in which bodies and their environments are co-constituted, before cripping ableism in and through three manifestations of dis§abled sporting bodies. The end goal is to facilitate the celebration of nonnormativity as a positive expression of the plurality of human existence.