From supercrip to techno supercrip

Abstract

Participation in sport on all levels, physical activity, leisure and recreation is seen as important for disabled people but at the same time barriers are reported for disabled people. Sports Pedagogy, kinesiology and physical education are fields that cover physical activities. The ability of the body is at the centre of many barriers to physical activities. The supercrip and ableism are two concepts used to question the narrative around the able body. Technologies (existing, envisioned and appearing) play an increasing role in the discussions of the able body including the ability expectation of a body with beyond species-typical abilities which could lead to new barriers to participation in sport on all levels, physical activity, leisure and recreation. In 2016, the first Cybathlon which labels itself as the “Cyborg Olympics” for physically disabled athletes took place. The 2024 version has the arm prosthetic race, assistance robot race, vision assistance race, brain computer interface race, exoskeleton race, wheelchair race, leg prosthetics race and exoskeleton race. Useful concepts to discuss the techno-influence are techno-supercrip, techno-poor disabled, techno-poor impaired, enhancement (transhumanized) version of ableism, technoableism and technowashing. The aim of this study was to ascertain how academic abstracts that cover participation barriers of disabled people in sport on all levels, physical activity, leisure and recreation and the discussions of these barriers within the fields of sports pedagogy, kinesiology and physical education cover barriers in conjunction with technologies, and the concepts of supercrip, superhuman, ableism, disablism, techno-supercrip, techno-poor disabled, techno-poor impaired, enhancement, transhuman, posthuman, (transhumanized) version of ableism , cyborg,  technoableism and technowashing.