” We are the Superhumans!” Sport e disabilità: gli eroi inabili

Abstract

The social representationsof phenomena arise and develop through the processes of interaction and communication within a collectivity. The sport performance, moreover, is nothing more than a series of microstories whose protagonists are heroes that convey both the values of sports practice, connoted in the medial dimension of testimonial, and the maximum exaltation of the exceptionality of the act sports in itself, to become true icons in the social imagination. Based on the Foucauldian concept of bio power, the great sports movement of the Paralympics, developed in recent decades, has become a worldwide event. What has changed about the "deformed body"? Are we rediscovering a central figure, in social narratives: the disabled hero? Are they wounded heroes who do not give up, whose prostheses seem magical bows, such as that of Philoctetes (Sophocles) or superhumans cyborgs with exceptional talents?

Keywords

• sports
• disability
• Paralympics
• hero
• social imaginary