Exemplified Values
Inclusion and the Law: Limitations in Sport Participation for Individuals with Disabilities
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Aubrey Shaw
In democratic societies, the law often acts as a moral conscience, unfortunately abiding by the strict letter of the law, without a moral view, limits moral action. Historically, this can be found from Mosiac law to Roman law to modern US practice. For example, Hebrew Pharisees ruled the land by enforcing Mosaic Law and paid no attention to the individual. Roman law was its own purpose without any concern for the individual. Today, the US Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 states, people with disabilities will not be discriminated against in transportation, while working, and even while playing. However, we have become so immersed by the umbrella of the law and its interpretation that we have lost and forgotten our moral duty to the individual.. Individuals with physical disabilities are still not given the opportunity to physically play in sports or recreation except for a few high schools, colleges, and the Paralympics. Therefore, the purpose of this ethical presentation is to examine the social injustices that are created when we as a society permit “legal” to determine opportunity and the concomitant resultant limitations on individuals with physical disabilities to play and recreate. Examples and solutions will be offered in both pre-professional education and professional practice. Participants will leave with: a different moral perspective about the limits of “legal” to morally serve individuals with disability, and will be given examples of better inclusionary practices.
Gentleman Amateur: Willie Windle and the Amateur Question in 19th-century American Cycling
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session James Kossuth
In the fall of 1888, Willie Windle was the fastest amateur bicyclist in the U.S., having won all the major tournaments that season, including the annual championship races of the League of American Wheelmen (L.A.W.). He was also one of the most popular racers in the country. As soon as he reached the pinnacle of the racing world, however, he was forced to spend the next two years fighting simply to remain part of it, repeatedly having to defend himself against charges of violating L.A.W.’s strict “amateur rule.” L.A.W.’s enforcement of its amateur rule may have quashed the racing careers of many cyclists, but Windle, the biggest name to be caught up in a professionalism scandal at that time, refused to go away, nor would his fans allow it. L.A.W. wrestled with variations of its amateur rule for years, ostensibly in an attempt to keep cycling free of the stigma of possibly corrupt professional racers. This paper examines the underlying issues of class and status at play in these debates, using Windle’s experiences as a case study for understanding social mobility, exclusion, and how the “leisure class” policed its boundaries in the late-nineteenth century.
Buying and Selling the Body: Connecting Sports Tourism and Sex Tourism
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rachel Roberson, Derek Van Rheenen
This paper charts a theoretical path through the colonial systems of power that enable and perpetuate the commodification of dehumanized bodies at the intersection of sport tourism and sex tourism. Mega sporting events, such as the FIFA World Cup, Olympics and Super Bowl in the United States, are often witnessed as corresponding sites of sex tourism, with a shared motivation among some tourists to participate in both commercialized sport and sex. The paper begins by providing a brief literature review of this unique intersection, specifically focused on the commodification and consumption of the body as currency and fantasy. We then explore what others have described as the libidinal economy (Jackson, 2007; Probyn, 2000; Pronger, 1999; Sexton, 2010). This paper, then, situates the libidinal economy within a global colonial matrix of power and the structural hierarchies based on race, gender, and sexuality from a global perspective (Mignolo, 2007). We argue that sports and sex tourism contribute to a larger colonial project fueled by the predatory, neoliberal relationship between the West and Third World, and the continued dehumanization of colonized peoples (Robinson, 2002; Roy, 2007). Using the libidinal economy as a theoretical framework, we evaluate the political economy of sport and sex tourism and propose an expanded understanding of physical exploitation at this intersection. By using this new framework, this paper ultimately calls for a further empirical study that explicitly evaluates the impact of systems of sport tourism and sex tourism occurring simultaneously at national and international mega sporting events.
