Paralympic assemblages globalizing International Relations: an autoethnographic account of global politics at the Paralympic Games

The Paralympics and more specifically Paralympic athletes can be viewed as a useful microcosm of global politics. As a Paralympic athlete, this paper offers an autoethnographic account of my experiences at multiple international para-athletics competitions where I witnessed modern International Relations play out in interesting, useful, and important ways. Many have argued the discipline of International Relations has struggled to keep pace with global politics and has not adequately accounted for the major issues now facing populations falling broadly under the categories of poverty, disease and climate change. The international political economy of the Paralympic Games forms a complex global assemblage that shines a spotlight on many of these issues by bringing together athletes affected by these sorts of modern challenges from all over the world. This paper will make use of my own experiences at the London 2012 Paralympics as well as several other major international para-sporting events in order to analytically explore how the Paralympics as global assemblage can serve as a case study for scholars of IR to better understand the challenges facing global populations. Better understanding these challenges will allow for the development of more accurate and analytically useful theories and approaches to global politics. An assemblage approach will be employed in order to develop a flat ontology that moves beyond traditional conceptions of challenges faced in global politics or what athletes ought to look like competing on the global stage.