ABSTRACT

This chapter critically addresses the contexts of events as being used for a social change agenda and introduces the concept of disability sport in connection to social change. This is investigated with the contextual understanding of events as a socio-cultural touchstone for cities seeking to address economic, tourism, urban, and social issues. Social change is one of the lesser attended concerns thus far for the majority of events, with most attention being paid to events’ urban and economic potentials. Yet this agenda presents the opportunity to address important issues of marginalization and social exclusion through the neo-liberal processes associated with development. These investigations were foregrounded with a critical interpretivist perspective stemming from a critical disability studies lens. Issues of power relating to organizational structures, policy, communication, and economic imperatives are used to break down this segment, which highlights the tensions in examining events as a tool for social change