Bodies from eSports: A narrative analysis on the embodiment of people with motor disabilities in eSports

eSports designate a unique set of activities closely related to virtual worlds in which competition takes shape mediated by different kinds of digital technologies and peripherals. The correlation between those who practice eSports and the virtual worlds which they experience cannot be fully explained by theories that circumscribe the phenomenon to something strictly physical or mental. Instead, in this work, we encourage and support the perspective on the phenomenon that analyzes the practice of eSports as something perceptual and embodied. This paper proposed a phenomenological approach, corroborated with narrative analysis, that aims to enrich the still ongoing discussion on the nature of eSport practices and its implication for eSports' athletes by investigating the issue through the embodied experiences and self-perception of people with motor disabilities. A sample of ten athletes with motor disabilities, including some Italian Paralympic athletes, with experience in eSports, were interviewed. The paper analyzes the qualitative results and discusses accordingly the role of actions, dynamicity, participated physicality, and environments of embodiment processes in eSports. In the end, the implications of this work, its limitations, and an encouragement to further research on this strand of thought are being discussed.