The socio-technical history of manual sport wheelchair devices

Brady, Samuel Alfred (2024) The socio-technical history of manual sport wheelchair devices. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Sport wheelchair technology was driven by the goals, ingenuity, and lived experiences of wheelchair athletes. Wheelchair sport emerged as a form of medical and social rehabilitation during the 1940s, growing quickly into significant international competitions which were administered by practitioners. Contemporary wheelchair devices were unsuited to the demands of sports activities, such as wheelchair basketball or wheelchair racing, as disabled people were not imagined to lead active lives. Resisting medical control over wheelchair technology and sport administration, wheelchair users took innovation into their own hands, tinkering their chairs for sport and creating new devices which revolutionised daily use. In this context, the act of modification and innovation is constructed as a site of social and political agency, as users asserted their own interpretations of wheelchair devices and sport.

This thesis draws on semi-structured oral history interviews, digital resources, and archival data to examine the role of wheelchair users within the development of sport wheelchair technologies. Language and models from the field of Science and Technology Studies such as the Social Construction of Technology are employed to trace the evolution of manual sport wheelchair devices, and establish a user-orientated approach to locate disabled people within this narrative. Recent historical research into objects made and used by disabled people and literature from sport and Paralympic studies are also incorporated to establish disabled athletes as significant actors in the development of disability objects (Hamraie and Fritsch, 2019). It is asserted that technological innovation, entrepreneurialism, and rule-breaking constituted acts of self-determination and agency-affirmation for disabled athletes. This thesis argues that the history of sport wheelchair technology is a significant site of autonomy for disabled people, which has previously lacked significant consideration within disability studies.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General); H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences
• Funder's Name: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
• Supervisor's Name: Watson, Professor Nicholas, Kerr, Professor Anne and Hope-Walker, Vicky
• Date of Award: 2024
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2024-84497
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 22 Aug 2024 13:10
• Last Modified: 23 Aug 2024 13:27
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.84497
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/84497