Sport and social development: Promise and caution from an incipient Cambodian football league

Abstract

One of the enduring controversies found in the literature on the role that sport plays in social development is whether this assumed relationship is weak or robust. Despite evidence both for and against the ‘sport-enhances-social-development’ model, a rapidly expanding cluster of case studies and a growing literature in a number of disciplines, there remain entire countries which have not been systematically explored and where almost no sociological research is available in English. Cambodia is one such case. Based upon qualitative methods (specifically interviews and observation) and as part of an ongoing study, this article reports on an incipient sport initiative (the Siem Reap Hotel Football League) in northern Cambodia. Emphasizing that sport is ‘contested terrain’ and may simultaneously improve and exacerbate existing social relations in any setting, our data show that any promise sport offers communities in either a micro or macro sense should be viewed through the lens of caution and circumspection.

Introduction: Sport, Social Development and Peace: Acknowledging Potential, Respecting Balance

“…For instance, sport-for-development studies in Caribbean and Latin American settings (Arbena, 1989(Arbena, , 1994(Arbena, , 1996(Arbena, , 2000Carter, 2008;McCree, 2000;Trotz, 2006;Wagner, 1982), and South Asian and Islamic settings (Anderson, 1989;Beran, 1989;Douglas, 1989;Hay, 2003;Hirai, 2005;Okada & Young, 2011;Stevenson, 1989) are rare. Among other reasons, language, geographical, cultural, and access barriers constitute the usual array of prohibitive factors, but these are all relative notions and the fact of the matter is that the possible role of sport's contribution to social development or peace in Asian countries, and especially southern Asian countries, has hardly been broached.…”

“…Among other projects, one recent venture (Okada & Young, 2011) has been a qualitative study of an incipient sport initiative in the northern region of the country in the form of the Siem Reap Hotel and Tourism Football League (SHTFL). It would be overly simplistic to report that our own informal "impact assessment" tells us that sport is helping post-conflict Cambodia "heal" and "advance."…”

From Genocide to Community Sport: A Cambodian Life History

“…Many people have come to play sports as well as to watch sports on TV and at stadiums. Sport remains very gendered (Okada & Young, 2011) but, at least at school level, both girls and boys are encouraged to exercise and get involved. In particular, football, which Ouk Sareth struggled to promote for years, has become the most popular sport in Cambodia.…”

“…One can now witness many spaces for playing football in both urban and rural areas, although no reliable data exist on the exact numbers of team, players or pitches in Siem Reap. It has, however, become extremely popular for young men to form teams, hold practices and play friendly matches on local green spaces (Okada & Young, 2011 One wonders how Ouk Sareth perceives these changes now. It was 1998 when we first met him and became involved in Cambodian "sport development" practice and research.…”

“…As such, while he does not expect unrealistic things from children in schools who find pleasure in simply kicking or throwing a ball, his vision of "sport development" for his country goes beyond recreational fun to consider a future where Cambodia is able to compete with the world's powerful nations. Once again, we acknowledge on this matter that the globalized modern sporting environment is not problem-free, or that an elite model of sport always serves the amateur and recreational sport community well À it is important not to overlook the complexities and possible problems on both dimensions (Okada & Young, 2011).…”