Summer of 2012: Paralympic Legacy and the Welfare Benefit Scandal

Abstract

Through the summer of 2012, two sets of images dominated the British press: welfare benefits scrounger and Paralympic superhuman. Through one claimant’s traversal of the benefits system and against the heady backdrop of the Games, this narrative inquiry examines the profound and tangible consequences of these images, whilst offering hope for an abiding legacy that holds consequences for public perception of disability and the lives of disabled people.