‘‘Different" bodies: hybridisations and transformations in the biographical storylines of people with disabilities

This article, moving within the conceptual framework of Embodied Cognition (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2005), aims at investigating the embodied representations of the bodies of people with physical disabilities in identity construction processes. In this way, the article helps to shape a culture that embraces differences and values body diversity. As described by existing literature on the subject (Clandinin & Connelly, 2004; Giaconi, Del Bianco, D’Angelo, Taddei, Caldarelli & Capellini, 2021; Giaconi, Del Bianco, D’Angelo, Taddei & Rodrigues, 2020), the life stories of people with disabilities, including athletes, represent a privileged way to access the processes of signification of corporeity, interpretation of diversity and overcoming of binary logics (male/female, natural/artificial). Indeed, when the hybridisations and transformations of “different” bodies emerge directly from the words of people with disabilities, one can gauge their profound distance from media representations of disability, awash with ableist narrative styles (Bocci, De Castro & Zona, 2020; Giaconi & Capellini, 2019). Following this direction, this article will highlight the possibilities of a pedagogical work intentionally focused on the narratives of athletes with disabilities.