Perceptions of sport and women among athletes at a South Sudan national sport event

ABSTRACT

This paper uses quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the difficulties and challenges inherent in women’s participation and continuation in sport through the experiences of athletes who participated in a national sporting event in South Sudan. Contrary to expectations, it was found that the overwhelming majority of the athletes indicated that they were in favour of women’s participation in sport. Furthermore, the data collected revealed that perceptions of sport and women varied between genders and by sport type. However, it is unclear whether its society is accepting of women’s participation in sport. Therefore, through the testimonies of athletes, coaches, and the event stakeholders, we examined the challenges women face in sport and how society perceives sport and women. As a result, this paper identified the underlying socio-cultural and economic challenges that make it difficult for women to continue playing sport in the South Sudanese context.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• sport
• women
• social norm
• South Sudan
• conflict

Acknowledgements

This paper has been prepared as part of a JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development project entitled “International Cooperation, Peace, and Development through Sport”. I am grateful to all staff of JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, JICA South Sudan, Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sports, especially Edward Settimo Yugu, and Lemor William Joseph Lemor and anonymous reviewers. The views and interpretations expressed in this paper and any errors are my own and not necessarily those of JICA.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 African Wrestling, 27 February 2023. https://www.thefightersgear.com/african-wrestling/ (accessed on 8 April 2023)

2 ibid.

3 The estimation data for section “South Sudan population literacy” is based on the latest data published by UNESCO Institute for Statistics (retrieved 24 October 2022).

4 This estimate is based on 2018 statistics; source: http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mitsuaki Furukawa

Mitsuaki Furukawa is a professor in International Relations at University of Shizuoka, Japan. His research explores peace building, post-war development, sports for development and peace, and SDGs.