Dissertação
O lazer de atletas com deficiência física: “da casa para a rua”
Fecha
2022-11-28Autor
Renan Jorge Ramos Martins
Institución
Resumen
Thinking about the leisure of people with physical disabilities who carry in their bodies their
singularities, several possibilities of being human, and associated to the practice of
paralympic sports activities is a complex work. The bodies of people with disabilities have
been marked, throughout time, by exclusion, segregation, integration, and continue being
marked by the struggle for inclusion. Inclusion to participate in social spaces, be they leisure,
sports, education, work, and health, which still do not promote accessibility, in its broadest
sense, which goes beyond physical structures, as well as conditions that allow a diverse social
participation. "How do people with physical disabilities practicing paralympic sport
experience leisure?" was the question that problematized the research, so as to achieve the
main objective of "verifying the perception of paratheletes about how the experience with
paralympic sport influenced their leisure experiences". Through the narrative interview
instrument proposed by the (auto)biographical research method. Having as a motto "Nothing
about us, without us", the established method was an attempt to carry out an emancipatory
research, which has one of its characteristics research methods that encompass the experience
of disability. To this end, the people with physical disabilities, athletes in paralympic sports,
by sharing their stories or part of them, took on the main role in the research, with stories told
and lived by them with the practice of paralympic sports made possible by an Association for
people with physical disabilities. Stories of achievements, difficulties, and dreams, in a
reflection process of what it is to be and to become an athlete. The narratives bring up the
most varied possibilities of experiencing leisure, such as contemplating nature; being
entertained; going out and drinking with friends; watching movies; cooking; barbecuing with
the family; listening to music; traveling; dating; resting and doing nothing, besides training
for the sport, doing physical therapy, and studying. It was observed that leisure possibilities
outside the home are expanded and mediated by the Association for people with physical
disabilities. The activities and social relationships promoted by the Association encouraged
people with physical disabilities to go out more. The practice of sports means life for the
athletes, they have the opportunity to (re)build their lives, they have the chance to be
motivation for someone who still thinks they can't do anything, due to the prejudice that is the
result of the disability rooted in society. Together with the NGO, families, especially mothers,
form a stronger support and care network for people with disabilities. And the engagement to
practice sports is the achievement of confidence to perform daily life activities in a more
autonomous way, as well as the acquisition of physical strength and material goods, made
possible the maintenance of physical and mental health balance, and the achievement of a
profession, that of an athlete. The lack of accessibility was a unanimous finding during trips
to competitions and to perform activities of daily living. The discourse of normality that treats
a different body with inferiority, a capacitating discourse that limits the existence of people
with disabilities, was also present in the narratives. We conclude that paralympic sports,
promoted by an Association for people with disabilities, may be an entrance door to the
leisure experiences of these people, it is a stimulus for them to leave home, get to know and
experience the most diverse leisure possibilities. In addition to enabling people with
disabilities to occupy spaces which, even today, are still designated to only one way of being,
the one based on the biological "normality" standard, which segregates and rejects diversity.