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Abstract
Examinations of pleasure are absent from much of the work that explores sport. This is surprising because of the frequent assertion that watching and playing sport is fun, enjoyable, or pleasurable. Similarly, a lack of discussion about pleasure exists in Sport for Development (SfD) programming. This article explores the presence and absence of pleasure in SfD projects that focus on girls’ empowerment through interviews with five SfD practitioners. The findings suggest that the importance of pleasure within individual programmes varies according to the larger political/social context for girls’ everyday pleasures, the necessity of measuring pleasure for donors, and the differing interpretations of what made sports fun for girls. Through this exploration of pleasure, notions of evidence, impact, and M&E (monitoring and evaluation) within SfD are critically interrogated.
Notes
1. Author 1 offered academic input for the COP and Author 2 oversaw the facilitation of the COP.
2. The COP was supported by a SfD funder that invested resources in all but one of the SfD programmes involved.
3. The notion of empowerment is a contested term and varied across the geographical locations in this study. See Cornwall & Brock (2005) for more discussion of this term in international development.
4. The COP began with six organisations, and one dropped out due to undisclosed challenges.
5. Eyben et al., The Politics of Evidence, 1.
6. More insights on navigating the local/global context in SfD research can be found in Collison et al., “The Methodological Dance.”
7. We use the terms fun, enjoyment and pleasure interchangeably throughout this paper. We discuss the challenges with this approach later in the paper.
8. Coalter, Sport-in-Development; Coalter and Taylor, Sport-for-Development Impact Study; and Nicholls, Giles, and Sethna, “Perpetuating the Lack.”
9. Nicholls, Giles, and Sethna, “Perpetuating the Lack,” 2.
10. Ahmed, “Evidence,” para 3.
11. Nicholls, Giles, and Sethna, “Perpetuating the Lack,” 13.
12. Hayhurst, “Image-ining Resistance”; Spaaij et al., “Participatory Research in SfD.”
13. Harris and Adams, “Power and Discourse,” 103.
14. Ibid., 104.
15. Wilson, “Middle-Walkers,” 23–4.
16. Ahmed, “Evidence,” para 3.
17. Women Win, “Building Young Women’s Leadership,” 2.
18. Ibid.
19. Pringle, “Defamiliarizing Heavy-contact Sports,” 213.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., 214.
22. Ibid.
23. See Pringle (2009) for an overview of this research.
24. As cited in Pringle, “Be Happy, Play Sport,” 198.
25. Coveney and Bunton, “In Pursuit of the Study”; Pringle, “Defamiliarizing Heavy-contact Sports”; and Pringle, Rinehart, and Caudwell, Sport and the Social Significance.
26. Cornwall and Edwards, Feminisms, Empowerment and Development.
27. Ibid., xi.
28. Ibid., 17.
29. Ibid., 27.
30. Østebø, “Translations of Gender Equality.”
31. Kim, “Feminist Cultural Studies.”
32. Giulianotti, “Sport, Transnational Peacemaking.”
33. Wilson, “Middle-Walkers,” 23–4.
34. Ahmed, “Evidence,” para 3. The authors thank the reviewers and guest editors for helping to articulate this sentiment.
35. White, Gaines, and Jha, “Beyond Subjective Well-being.”
36. Jolly, Cornwall, and Hawkins, Women, Sexuality and Political Power.
37. Morgan, “Why We Get Off.”
38. Hoel, “Engaging Islamic Sexual Ethics.”
39. Pavlidis and Fullagar, “Pain and Pleasure of Roller Derby.”