Rising Phoenix and Ludwig Guttmann's “Sport for the Disabled” Philosophy
A Legacy to Break Prejudices?
Abstract
Rising Phoenix. History of the Paralympic Games is a documentary released in 2020 and prepared at the request of the International Paralympic Committee. The objective of this article is to critically analyze the historicization and the message offered by it, in relation to the fact that the “philosophy of sport for the disabled”, founded last century in Stoke Mandeville by the English doctor Ludwig Guttmann, constitutes a legacy to break negative prejudices about people with disabilities and promoting their human rights today. To achieve this purpose, the mythical account provided by the documentary on Paralympic Sport is described. Then, projected shadows are identified in the light of the historicization offered and, based on content analysis of publications produced by Guttmann between the 1950s and 1970s and secondary sources, the principles that make up his philosophy of rehabilitation are detailed. These elements are then confronted with those exalted in the following two decades by the nascent movement for the rights of people with disabilities and its proposal of the social model of disability, evidencing its complete lack of harmony. Finally, recovering contributions from the Disability Studies shows how the identity narrative construction offered by the documentary of the Paralympic athletes through the mask of the “phoenixes” and the “super humans”, born in Stoke Mandeville, far from their intention, they reproduce exalting prejudices of the ideology of normality that promote disability, social discipline and the perpetuation of an unequal society.
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