An Interpretative Phenomenological Inspired Analysis of Visually Impaired Participation in a British Judo Club: Advocacy, Social Justice and Care Ethics in the Disability Sport Built Environment

This thesis provides an insider's perspective of how the current experience of Visually Impaired (VI) participants in British Judo (BJA) club environments is evolving alongside the growth of the global development of Para-Judo post London 2012. Via ethnography, the study focuses on how advocacy roles can be established within the BJA Paralympic performance pathway, an emphasis can be put upon social justice to create more ethical and accessible environments, and the experiences of past and current athletes can be learned from. Theoretically guided by phenomenological analysis of participants' lived experience and Gilligan's (1982) theorisation of care, this thesis calls upon accounts of relationships formed with coaches, and Para-Judo facilitators (facilitators being Judo coaches, club welfare officers, and other members of Judo environments whom make Judo possible for people to practice). Data for this thesis has been taken from 4 in-depth interviews conducted with athletes at varying stages in the Paralympic performance pathway, the interviews have been translated from the ethnographic perspective of this research through the development of a series of discussion and policy document analy-sis which contributes to the growing field of literature that aims to articulate the experi-ence of people living with impairments in the world of culture and leisure which is de-signed for a non-disabled audiences. The research contributes and provides a critical interrogation of how Paralympic Judo has not only evolved in Britain, but also how its' culture and priorities have been aligned to growing demands of professionalism set by the rapidly evolving global landscape of Paralympic Judo over the last 10 years since London 2012. This is evidenced in findings which suggest that there are very little physi-cal limitations in a VI person participating in Judo, but the obstacles that do exist are re-sults of the cultural, environmental, and social misunderstandings of disability in the con-text of sporting and leisure environments.