Taking sex off the sidelines: Challenging heteronormativity within ‘Sport in Development’ research

Abstract

The majority of 'Sport in Development' (SiD) research imparts a heteronormative framework that serves to prevent nuanced understandings of how sexuality and gender matter in programming that aspires to achieve development through/with sport. The authors review existing SiD academic literature and draw on personal work and research experiences within the SiD field to evidence this claim. Three reasons for this heteronormative frame are identified: (1) limited engagement with themes of sexuality within research on international development; (2) few examinations of queer desire and sport in areas of the Global South; and (3) the emphasis on quantitative monitoring and evaluation tools within SiD programming. The authors conclude by offering suggestions on how to challenge the existing heteronormative framework within SiD research.

Participants’ physical activity levels and evaluations of a school sport programme in Papua New Guinea

“…So whilst the programme might deliver something approaching parity of opportunity for boys and girls in terms of engagement with physical activity, beyond school the story is different. This result mirrors other SfD findings that demonstrate that women and girls tend to be marginalised in terms of opportunities for sport and physical activity as a consequence of their identified gender or their biological sex, or the capacity to identify as anything other than subservient to the agenda of males (Carney and Chawansky, 2016;Forde, 2009;Jeanes, 2013). This issue presents a challenge for those who sponsor and run SfD projects in low-income countries, and it begs the question as to whether SfD intervention programmes can be run in such countries without slipping into a colonial discourse of benevolence (see Darnell, 2007 for more on this concern).…”

“…Notwithstanding recent studies that have sought to redress a number of issues (e.g. Carney and Chawansky, 2016;Darnell et al, 2016;Hayhurst et al, 2016;Sherry and Schulenkorf, 2016;Spaaij et al, 2016;Welty Peachey & Burton, 2016), this situation has tended to lead to low impact, contradictory, or non-existent evidence regarding program appropriateness, success, and sustainability. Coalter (2010) has been critical in this regard suggesting that programs of SfD often conflate micro-level individual gains with community wide development and engage in narrowly framed interventions yet claim to be addressing what Coalter (2010) referred 6 to as 'broad gauge problems' (p. 308) that tend to lack clear targets for change.…”

“We Are Prisoners in Our Own Homes”: Connecting the Environment, Gender-Based Violence and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights to Sport for Development and Peace in Nicaragua

“…Other pertinent work has discussed the SRHR curriculum connected to broader SDP schemes, but still mostly within the framework of HIV/AIDS (e.g., [69,70]). Certainly, this lack of attention to SRHR is perhaps unsurprising considering the disregard to sexuality and the heteronormative backbone of SDP programming, resulting in a marginalization of participants with diverse sexualities (see [71]).…”

‘You’re going to teach my son to be viado’: From ‘girling’ to queering sport for development?

“…Although there is a lack of research addressing explicitly queer experiences within the context of sport for development, the field is not void of discussions that dip into this territory (see Carney and Chawansky, 2016;Chawansky, 2015;Forde and Frisby, 2015;Oxford, 2017Oxford, , 2019Oxford and Spaaij, 2019). Chawansky (2015) utilized autoethnographic vignettes to offer a feminist interpretation of the body in development and sport for development, through which she raises issues of sexism, heterosexism and queer sexuality within the SDP field.…”