ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a very short overview of the emergence and institutionalization of some of the most widespread segregated disability sport programmes in the Western world. Although large multi-sport events have emerged from these programmes, many of these began as small, local clubs – sometimes led by well-meaning doctors and advocates, other times created and led by disabled and deaf athletes themselves. The complexity and diversity of these histories mirror the complexity and diversity of disability communities, and their histories more broadly. Further, far from being a history made up exclusively of empowerment, disability sport histories offer a glimpse into some of the more troubling, deeply unjust social structures that disabled and deaf people have and continue to face, including their forced institutionalization, hierarchies of disability privilege and valuation, as well as the undermining of disability and deaf self-determination.
