Athlete, anthropologist and advocate: moving towards a lifeworld where difference is celebrated

Abstract

This paper is a call to scholars working in the field of sport studies and researching the Paralympic communitas to embrace the use of reflexive ethnography. The nature of ethnographic research places the social scientist in a privileged position. On the one hand, there is a need to transfer knowledge to the academic community, but on the other hand this should not occur as a result of the exploitation of the people under investigation. Using a reflexive historical ethnographic vignette as a starting point, this paper highlights how our past embodied interactions with the lifeworld can impact the shape and colour of the lens through which we view it. Ultimately this paper argues that by adopting a phenomenological stance we can gain a better understanding of the degree to which our body, as a vessel for data collection, can enhance our understanding of the cultural milieu surrounding the Paralympic movement.