The impact of sitting volleyball participation on the lives of players with impairments

333 Pages·2017·4.65 MB·English

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The impact of sitting
volleyball participation on
the lives of players with
impairments
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• A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements
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Forbidden to Stand: the Impact of sitting volleyball participation
on the lives of players with impairments

by

Carla Filomena Silva

A Doctoral Thesis

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of
Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University

July 2013

School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences
Loughborough University

© by Carla Filomena Silva
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My first note of appreciation goes to the SV players, the whole SV community and the
Volleyball institutions for the open and honest way they have collaborated with me to
make this research possible. I am deeply grateful for the generous opportunity I was
awarded to undertake this research. I would also like to thank the inestimable assistance
of my supervisor, P. David Howe, during the research process, for continuously
challenging my thinking and for all the patient revision, edition, correction and re‐
correction of the numerous versions of my thesis and for all the friendly support during
my time at Loughborough University.
Thanks so much to the all the friends who have supported me in this journey both in the
UK and in Portugal, who despite the distance, have kept a tender eye on me. Thank you
Mum, for instigating in me the discipline to study and Dad, for buying all the books!
Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the support of my sponsor, the Portuguese
Foundation for Science and Technology, without which I would not have been able to
undertake this degree. My scholarship was part of the Operational Program of Human
Potential (POPH) of the do QREN (Quadro de referência estratégico nacional) and co‐
financed by the European Social Fund (ESF).

ii
ABSTRACT
“Forbidden to stand” aims to provide a comprehensive account of how participation in
sitting volleyball (SV) has impacted upon the lives of players with impairments. To
achieve this aim, this study uses capabilities approach, a theoretical and methodological
framework unexplored in sport contexts but widely appraised in political philosophy as
one of the most comprehensive approaches to well‐being and quality of life. One of the
implications of the use of capabilities approach was the compulsory need to pay
attention not only to personal capabilities per se, but also to the contextual elements of
the individuals’ experience in SV. As such, whilst identifying, describing and assessing
the main personal capabilities in which participation in SV had a significant impact, the
present study presents simultaneously an anthropological account of the SV field in the
United Kingdom (UK) as it developed. In connecting capabilities approach and disability
sport for the first time, this study contributes to our understanding of the impact of sport
on the “whole lives” of people and to the development of a holistic tool to measure
personal development, helping to address an acknowledged omission of such
instruments in the academic field of adapted physical activity.
In order to respect the pluralism and complexity of capabilities approach, an
ethnographic methodological design was used due to its flexibility in combining a
plurality of theoretical insights; data sources and perspectives. During the study the
researcher performed different roles within the SV community facilitating empirical data
collection using the ethnographic tool kit. A key development in this process was the
definition of an analytical thematic framework which directed the extensive analysis of
the whole data set. A set of ten relevant capabilities were then identified as the most
relevant for SV players with impairments, and SV impact on those capabilities described.
This study reveals that while the potential to enact and promote capabilities is present in
SV context in the UK, it is very dependent upon influential factors operating at a personal,
cultural and environmental levels. At a personal level, the enjoyment and expansion of
capabilities in players with impairments was very much influenced by the possession of
substantial financial resources and previous sporting capital; thus the players who have
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expanded their capabilities the most were individuals who already possessed a good
level of capabilities enjoyment. At the cultural level, while SV field detains important
qualities to promote capabilities enjoyment such as an equalisation of the social worth
between people with and without impairments, these were often overridden by the
political and cultural dominance of an “able‐bodied” volleyball ethos. At an
environmental level, the overdependence of Volleyball institutions from the funding
allocated by national sport agencies such as UK Sport, as well as the incipient
development of SV grassroots stream clearly placed SV in a vulnerable position in
relation to external political forces.
The most important outcomes of the present study is the identification of life dimensions
that are significantly affected by participation in SV as well as the identification of the
most important factors mediating such impact. Beyond the fields of disability sport and
adapted physical activity, a theoretical/methodological symbiotic relation between
capabilities approach and social sciences of sport would encourage those involved in
sport to refocus their mission on people and human development instead of on economic
and institutional benefits.

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1. Disability Models ......................................................................................................................... 12
Table 5.1. Identifying Capabilities and Poverty Dimensions ........................................................ 84
Table 5.2. Preliminary list of relevant capabilities for SV eligible players .............................. 86
Table 5.3. Preliminary list of contextual factors affecting the conversion of SV goods into
personal capabilities ....................................................................................................................................... 87
Table 5.4. Set of relevant capabilities for SV eligible players (UK) ............................................. 88
Table 5.5. Contextual factors affecting the conversion of SV goods into personal
capabilities .......................................................................................................................................................... 89
Table 6.1. Active SV regional centres from 2009 to 2013 ............................................................ 102
Table 6.2. Characterisation of SV field of practice ........................................................................... 103
Table 7.1. Summary of SV capabilities, functionings and critical contextual factors ....... 189
Table 8.1. Summarised report on potential conflicts in comprehensiveness and
sustainability of SV set of relevant capabilities ................................................................................. 195 

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1. Disability as a multidimensional construct. Main contextual factors and
representative authors. ................................................................................................................................. 23 
Figure 4.1. Contextual realms of personal capabilities of people with impairments. Main
obstacles theoretical contributions for its analysis in the present study. ............................... 55 
Figure 6.1. Volleyball and Sitting Volleyball institutional network............................................ 96 
Figure 6.2. Pertinent oppositions differentiating SV clubs and their positioning in the SV
field of practice. ............................................................................................................................................... 107 
Figure 6.3. The relative positions of AB players in SV field of practice. ................................. 114 
Figure 6.4. Pertinent oppositions differentiating MD players in SV field of practice. ...... 117 
Figure 6.5. Pertinent oppositions differentiating D players in SV field of practice. .......... 120 
Figure 7.1. Pyramid of actors’ influence in SV field of practice. ................................................. 182 
Figure 8.1. Capabilities and disability as an inversion of each other. Main contextual
factors at the personal, cultural and environmental levels. ........................................................ 198 
Figure 8.2. Holonic structure of social reality (personal, cultural and environmental
levels). ................................................................................................................................................................. 200 
Figure 8.3. Expansion of personal capabilities supported by a fully empowered personal
consciousness. ................................................................................................................................................. 202 
Figure 8.4. Expansion of personal capabilities supported by the full expansion of a
culture of acceptance of individual diversity. .................................................................................... 210 
Figure 8.5. Sitting volleyball as a “neutral embodiment” field. ....................................... 211 
Figure 8.6. Expansion of personal capabilities supported by an ideology of Universal
Integralism. ....................................................................................................................................................... 221 
Figure 8.7. Representation of the maximum expansion of personal capabilities, in which
impairment does not imply disability. .................................................................................................. 228 
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LIST OF PICTURES
Picture 3.1. Grand Prix Final (2nd tier), Essex Pirates (left) vs Portsmouth Sharks (right)
on the 14th April 2012. © Jon McGugan .................................................................................................. 40 
Picture 5.1. Sitting Volleyball GB programme, male and female teams and official and
unofficial staff (November 2011). Courtesy of ©Andrew Skinner. ............................................ 75 
Picture 6.1. First tier match, Stoke Mandeville stadium (21st March 2011). Researcher’s
photograph. ...................................................................................................................................................... 128 
Picture 6.2. Second tier match. Stoke Mandeville Stadium (21st March 2011). Courtesy of
an anonymous informant. .......................................................................................................................... 129 
Picture 7.1. The “simple joy of movement”. Researcher’s photograph................................... 176 
Picture 7.2. Grand Prix Final, 2nd Tier, Essex Pirates (Left) vs Portsmouth Sharks (Right),
(14th April 2012). © Jon McGugan .......................................................................................................... 177 
Picture 8.1. From Hiding to “Showing Off”. The technological body as central to the body
project. Researcher’s photograph. .......................................................................................................... 204 
Picture 8.2. “I am a Canadian SV player!” by P.D. Howe. ............................................................... 204 
Picture 8.3. Amputee players playing volleyball in‐between SV matches. At the Stoke
Mandeville Grand Prix (21st March 2011). Researcher’s photograph. ................................... 219 
Picture 8.4. Harpers tournament (24th March 2011). Netherlands x Great Brittain, final
greeting. Researcher’s photograph. ....................................................................................................... 219 
Picture 8.5. Grand Prix Final, 1st Tier, Kettering, (14th April 2012). Surrey Gators squad
celebrating one more point. © Jon McGugan ..................................................................................... 220 

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LIST OF ACRONYMS
Adapted Physical Activity (APA), 2
British Association of Sport for the Disabled (BASD), 38
British Paralympic Association (BPA), 41
BVF Sitting Volleyball Committee (BVFSVC), 104
Cerebral Palsy‐ International Sports and Recreation Association (CP‐ISRA), 28
Carla Filomena Silva, (CFS) 99
Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT), 39
Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DMCS)., 40
Department of National Heritage (DNH), 39
Disabled Status (D), 45
English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS), 38
European Committee of Volleyball for the Disabled (ECVD), 44
Gender Development Index (GDI), 51
Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), 51
Great Britain(GB), 4
Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 51
Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA), 52
Human Development Report (HDR), 51
International Blind Sports Association (IBSA), 28
International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) (WHO, 14
International Coordinating Committee of the IOSDs (ICC), 29
International Paralympic Committee (IPC), 29
International Sport Federation for People with Mental Handicap (Inas), 28
International Sports Organisation for the Disabled (IOSD), 28
International Stoke Mandeville Sports Federation (ISMSF), 28
Minimally Disabled status(MD), 45
National Disability Sport Organizations (NDSOs), 38
National governing bodies (NGBs), 38
National Grand Prix (NGP), 4