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Sport, Spinal Cord Injury, Embodied Masculinities, and the Dilemmas of Narrative Identity

University of Exeter

BRETT SMITH

University of Exeter

This article focuses on the narrative identity dilemmas of four men who have experienced spinal cord injury (SCI) through playing rugby football union and now define themselves as disabled. The biographical data illustrate how body-self relationships moved from an absent presence in the lives of these men to something that was other, problematic, and alien. This transformation instigated anxieties concerning the combined loss of specific masculine and athletic identities that were formerly at the apex of the participants' identity hierarchy. In such circumstances, the desire for a restored self is highlighted, as are the limited narrative resources that frame this coping strategy. Suggestions for how this situation might be changed are then offered.

Key Words: sport • spinal cord injury • identity • masculinities • narrative

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