This paper begins with a phenomenological description of the author’s own experience of encountering Jun’ichi Kawai, a blind swimmer who won numerous medals in five Paralympic Games. Summarizing the experience as “resonance” through the auditory perception of voices, the author further describes his experience of watching blind sports at the 2024 Paralympic Games, taking up goalball as an example. The focus then moves to the players’ sophisticated skills of auditory-motor coordination, which would have been differentiated from the visuo-motor coordination that most people depend on in their bodily movements. After describing these experiences, the paper explores the methodological question of understanding another person’s lived experiences and their mental states. By introducing the notion of intercorporeality proposed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the author finds the most fundamental dimension of social understanding in sensory-motor resonance between two persons solicited by perceiving the bodily actions of one another. The deeper phase of mutual understanding emerges “in-between” through embodied interpersonal interactions, including both verbal and nonverbal communications. Understanding another person is not based primarily on cognitive operations such as inference and simulation but on resonant experiences that occur in-between, where the perception–action loop as well as inter-affectivity are formed between two persons. Finally, based on this methodological understanding, the paper prospects the possibility of promoting social understanding of physical disabilities through parasports.

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[in Japanese]

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The Paralympics provide a significant opportunity to highlight not only the athletes and competitions but also a wide range of topics related to the event. This study aimed to systematically analyze and organize the content of newspaper articles published in Japan during the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games (hereinafter “Paris Games”), which were held over 12 days from August 28 to September 8, 2024. After analysis by three researchers, the articles were classified into seven categories to systematize the reporting.

When calculating the proportion of articles in each category, approximately half focused on the athletes, events, and the Paris Games itself, including topics such as the results of Japanese athletes and teams in the events, the personal backgrounds of athletes, the rules of the events, and the overall atmosphere of the Paris Games. Similar to past Games, a significant portion of the reporting on the Paris Games focused on the competitive aspects of Paralympic sports. However, the volume of coverage was smaller compared to the Paris Olympics, reflecting the previously noted tendency to treat the Paralympics as “secondary” in terms of media priority.

In addition, an increasing number of articles about Paralympic athletes addressed not only societal issues related to disability, but also topics related to an inclusive society, such as gender and religion. This indicates that the role of the Paralympics is evolving from raising awareness about people with disabilities to also recognizing the existence of social minorities, and encouraging discussions on building an inclusive society.

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The Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games (hereafter referred to as the Paris Games), held from July to September 2024, faced concerns about becoming politically charged due to the ongoing impacts of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the Gaza-Israel conflict. In a previous study, the author categorized the challenges to political neutrality within the Olympic and Paralympic Movements into two key areas: (1) issues related to the prohibition of discrimination based on identity factors and (2) issues reflecting state policies and intergovernmental political conflicts. This paper examines cases in which these two categories of issues emerged during the Paris Games.

Overall, both the Olympic and Paralympic Games were conducted without disruption from large-scale political acts such as demonstrations or terrorism. However, specific incidents raised questions about the interpretation of political neutrality as assumed by the Olympic and Paralympic Movements. For category (1), this paper explores instances such as a female Afghan athlete from the Refugee Olympic Team advocating for women’s liberation and debates concerning the intersection of gender identity and competitive fairness in female boxing. For category (2), it addresses the opposition to the participation of Israeli athletes and examines patriotic expressions, including war-related sentiments, from athletes representing Israel, Russia (competing as neutral individuals), and Ukraine. These cases underscore how political issues permeated the Paris Games, challenging the concept of neutrality in the Olympic and Paralympic Movements.

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