Indicator culture in sport for development and peace: a transnational analysis of governance networks

Abstract

This article analyses sport for development and peace (SDP) governance, focusing specifically on the role of indicator culture. It examines how different actors inform SDP governance, drawing upon data collected as part of a larger, multi-sited ethnographic research project. It utilises actor–network theory as its analytical guide, which enables deeper consideration of how bureaucratic mechanisms, measurement and evaluation practices, political and funding mandates, and postcolonial ideologies converge in the development of SDP initiatives in the Pacific. Findings point to tensions within the broader embrace of indicator culture and how SDP is uniquely positioned to illuminate the dilemmas that result.

Keywords:

• Governance
• sport
• actor–network theory
• indicator culture
• development

Acknowledgements

The author would also like to acknowledge earlier collaborations with Roannie Ng Shiu and the feedback from anonymous reviewers, all of which significantly strengthened this paper.

Notes

1. Bevir and Rhodes, Interpreting British Governance, 1.

2. Drahos and Krygier, “Regulation, Institutions, and Networks,” 12–16.

3. See, for example, Darnell, “Power, Politics, and Sport for Development and Peace”; Hayhurst, “Corporatising Sport, Gender and Development.”

4. Kidd, “A New Social Movement.”

5. Lindsey and Gratton, “An ‘International Movement’?”

6. Lindsey, “Governance in Sport-for-Development.”

7. Merry, The Seduction of Quantification, 9–10.

8. I avoid language such as ‘donor’ or ‘recipient’ countries or other such misrepresentative framings. Any failures to do so are my own.

9. Nicholls et al., “Perpetuating the ‘Lack of Evidence’ Discourse in Sport for Development.”

10. Ibid., 250.

11. Davis et al., “Indicators as a Technology of Global Governance”; Merry et al., The Quiet Power of Indicators.

12. Asdal et al., Technoscience, 9.

13. Latour, The Making of Law. Pottage (‘The Materiality of What?’) offers a comprehensive critique of this work.

14. Even early on ANT never focused exclusively on science or technology (Callon and Latour, “Unscrewing the Big Leviathan”).

15. Latour, Reassembling the Social.

16. Gershon, “Bruno Latour,” 163–167.

17. An exception is Mosse, Cultivating Development.

18. For a comparison between Bourdieu and Latour, see Schinkel, “Sociological Discourse of the Relational.”

19. Law, Organizing Modernity, 101.

20. Wacjman, TechnoFeminism, 432; see also, for example, Casper and Clarke (“Making the Pap Smear the ‘Right Tool’ for the Job”).

21. For a defence of ANT’s approach to power, see Latour (Reassembling the Social). Larsen (Shaping Taxpayers) offers an example of an adaptation of ANT used to study governance.

22. Haraway, “Situated Knowledges,” 575–599.

23. Merry, The Seduction of Quantification, 3.

24. Davis, Kingsbury, and Merry, “Indicators as a Technology of Global Governance,” 73–74.

25. Merry, “Measuring the World.”

26. Davis, “Legal Indicators,” 45.

27. Henne, “From the Academy to the UN and Back Again.”

28. Davis, “Legal Indicators,” 38.

29. Merry, The Seduction of Quantification.

30. Davis, “Legal Indicators,” 46.

31. Ibid., 46.

32. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is part of the multilateral treaty regime that creates the human rights system (United Nations, Convention on the Rights of the Child, accessed November 12, 2015, https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx).

33. Many thanks to Summer Wood for bringing this document to my attention.

34. Merry and Wood, “The Paradox of Measurement,” 214.

35. Henne, “Multi-sited Fieldwork in Regulatory Studies”; Merry, The Seduction of Quantification.

36. Marcus, “Ethnography in/of the World System.”

37. Merry, The Seduction of Quantification.

38. Gershon, “Bruno Latour,” 170–171.

39. Latour, Reassembling the Social, 200–202.

40. Gershon, “Bruno Latour,” 172–173. These scholars include Donna Haraway, Susan Leigh Starr, and Marilyn Strathern.

41. Haraway, “Situated Knowledges.”

42. Ibid., 581.

43. Institutional ethics approval HREA A-13–35.

44. Most documents were available through Australian Government websites and offices, including DFAT, Australian Aid (before it was restructured as part of DFAT), and the Australian Sport Commission Clearinghouse for Sport (https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/), as well as from websites of SDP-specific organisations and partners (e.g. Sport Matters, National Rugby League). Some participants also allowed me to review nonconfidential planning documents that focused on SDP initiatives.

45. All interviewees granted consent, and, when possible, I audio-recorded interviews. For interviews and observations, I took handwritten field notes (transcribed within a day of completion). In keeping with desires for anonymity, I limit my discussion of specific programs to those about which there is publically accessible information.

46. Crabtree and Miller, Doing Qualitative Research.

47. Lowy Institute for International Policy, Australian Foreign Aid, 2015, accessed April 1, 2016, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/issues/australian-foreign-aid.

48. Australian Government. Australian Sports Diplomacy Strategy, 2015–18, accessed March 1, 2016. https://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Documents/aus-sports-diplomacy-strategy-2015-18.pdf.

49. This concern emerged across four interviews conducted on September 6, 2012 and June 5, 2013.

50. International Olympic Committee, ‘Cooperation with the UN,’ accessed April 29, 2015, https://www.olympic.org/content/olympism-inaction/idsdp/cooperation-with-the-un/

51. Hayhurst and Frisby, “Inevitable Tensions.”

52. Most interviews took place prior to the introduction of the Sustainable Development Goals, which are detailed at https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

53. Webb and Richelieu, “Sport for Development and Peace in Action.”

54. Friel et al., “Freedom to Lead a Life We Have Reason to Value,” 248.

55. Jolly et al., Falling through the Net?

56. Friel et al.; Tonga’s Ministry of Health attempted to establish quota restrictions on the consumption of low-quality meat, acknowledging associated health risks, but it was found to violate World Trade Organisation rules.

57. Jolly et al., Falling through the Net?

58. Ibid.

59. Australian Government, Tonga Netball Strategy: Health Communication Strategy and Phase 1 Campaign Workplace, 2011–14. Australian Sports Outreach Program, 2011.

60. Sherry et al., Tonga Netball Association Pacific Netball Partnerships Phase One Evaluation.

61. Crawford et al., “Our Metrics, Ourselves.”

62. Ibid.

63. Agathangelou and Ling, “Desire Industries,” 133.

64. Lindsey, “Governance in Sport-for-Development,” 1.

65. Manuela and Sibley, “The Pacific Identity and Wellbeing Scale (PIWBS).”