Sport, development and social change

Sport and Incarceration: Theoretical Considerations for Sport for Development Research

“…In this vein of analysis, carceral geography's sensitivity to the ways in which carceral time and space are embodied (Moran, 2012) offers a useful entry to considering how SfD programs in compact sites inscribe the carceral upon the bodies of participants and, notably, how participants can use sport in unintended ways to produce spaces that are sites of pleasurable or meaningful experiences. Such ques-tions have begun to be explored in prison sport research (Norman, 2019;Norman & Andrews, 2019), and would align well with cutting edge theoretical concerns in SfD research around human movement and space (Forde et al, 2017), "hope and social change" through sport (Forde & Kota, 2016, p. 445), and "questions of socialization, identity, bio-politics, and the body [as they are] produced and constrained within the terrain (both material and discursive) of the [SfD] sector" (Darnell et al, 2018, p. 140).…”

“…While a recent overview of SfD research (Darnell, Chawansky, Marchesseault, Holmes, & Hayhurst, 2018) notes a paucity of critical theoretical perspectives among most SfD scholarship, researchers have developed critical analyses of SfD using diverse approaches, such as political economy (Darnell, 2012), postcolonial feminism (Hayhurst, 2016), critical race theory (Forde, 2015), and the Capabilities Approach (Dao & Smith, 2019;Darnell & Dao, 2017), among others. Less common, but significant, are analyses of SfD spaces (e.g., Forde, Waldman, Hayhurst, & Frisby, 2017;Oxford & Spaaij, 2017), which will be discussed in greater detail in a later section.…”

“…Scholars have rightly noted that complex phenomenon of SfD must be understood as occurring "across local, global and transnational levels within the [SfD] sector" (Giulianotti, 2011, p. 52), while specific SfD interventions have been found to cultivate 'safe spaces' for emotional expression, psychosocial wellbeing, or social support (e.g., Oxford & Spaaij, 2017). Using vignettes arising from their research, Forde et al (2017) provided a compelling insight into considering how SfD programs facilitate a variety of types of movement in and through diverse spaces and, in so doing, produce complex and contradictory spatial meanings related to neoliberalism, community, gender, and social injustice. SfD research has thus only tentatively linked to potentially-relevant developments in the broader field of sport geography, such as disciplinary surveillance and resistance in sport spaces (Bale, 1993), the contradictory meanings of physical activity as a 'therapeutic landscape' (van Ingen, 2004), the politics of health promotion through physical activity space (Fusco, 2007), or emerging non-representational analyses of movement, time and space (Andrews, 2017).…”

“…Or, given the global pressures within the SfD sector to produce 'positive' outcomes that may not align with participants' experiences or interests (Donnelly, Atkinson, Boyle, & Szto, 2011), might an SfD program in a compact carceral space reinforce the slow passage of time and bureaucratic spatial management of residents' daily lives? And, in line with critiques of SfD's enmeshment in global forms of structural inequality and circuits of capital (Darnell et al, 2018;Darnell & Dao, 2017;Forde et al, 2017;Oxford & Spaaij, 2017), to what extent does SfD in compact spaces contribute to or challenge "the institutionalized disposal of time… [and] wastage of human life" (Gill et al, 2018, p. 190) that characterizes contemporary carceral logic?…”

The State of Play: Critical sociological insights into recent ‘Sport for Development and Peace’ research

“…For example, how might a “more open and active engagement with physical practices and the body across a multitude of spaces” lead to new spaces and new questions that may challenge dominant understandings of SDP? (Forde et al, 2017: 6). Indeed, when one considers two agencies using physical activity in their development programmes a range of definitions appears.…”