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Abstract
Sport for Development and Peace (sdp) has been adopted as a ‘development tool’ by Western development practitioners and a growing number of development organisations. Sport is frequently referred to as a ‘global language’ and used to promote international awareness and cross-cultural understanding—two key themes in global citizenship literature. In this paper I examine the language adopted by organisations promoting sdp—specifically, what sdp organisations say they do as well as the nature and implications of their discourses. Drawing on a large and growing body of literature on global citizenship and post-structuralism, and on post-colonial critiques, I argue that sdp narratives have the potential to reinforce the ‘Othering’ of community members in developing countries and may contribute to paternalistic conceptions of development assistance. In so doing, they weaken the potential for more inclusive and egalitarian forms of global citizenship. The article examines the discourse of sdp organisational material found online and analyses it in the context of broader sport and colonialism literature. The work of SDP organisations is further examined in relation to global citizenship discourse with a focus on the production— and projection—of global subjects, or objects of globalisation, and what this means for development ‘beneficiaries’.
Notes
1 See D Black, ‘The ambiguities of development: implications for “development through sport”’, Sport in Society, 13(1), 2010, pp 121–129; I. Beutler ‘Sport serving development and peace: achieving the goals of the United Nations through sport’, Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, 11(4), 2008, pp 359–369; and B Kidd, ‘A new social movement: sport for development and peace’, Sport in Society, 11(4), 2008, pp 370–380.
2 S Wehbi, L Elin & Y El-Lahib, ‘Neo-colonial discourse and disability: the case of Canadian international development ngos’, Community Development Journal, 4 August 2009, at http://cdj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/bsp035v2.
3 See ME Baaz, The Paternalism of Partnership: A Postcolonial Reading of Identity in Development Aid, London: Zed Books, 2005; B Heron, Desire for Development: Whiteness, Gender and the Helping Imperative, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007; and N Cook, Gender, Identity, and Imperialism: Women Development Workers in Pakistan, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
4 R Falk, ‘The making of global citizenship’, in B Van Steenberger (ed), The Condition of Citizenship, London: Sage, 1994.
5 R Kaplan, ‘Media and medievalism: a new tyranny rears its head’, Policy Review Online, 128, 12 May 2005, http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6495.
6 M Featherstone, ‘Technologies of post-human development and the potential for global citizenship’, in JN Pieterse (ed), Global Futures: Shaping Globalization, London: Zed, 2000.
7 D Drache, Defiant Publics: The Unprecedented Reach of the Global Citizen, Cambridge: Polity, 2008.
8 A Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991; L Bennet, ‘Branded political communication: lifestyle politics, logo campaigns, and the rise of global citizenship’, in M Micheletti, A Follesdal & D Stolle (eds), Political Consumerism: Politics, Products and Markets, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 2003.
9 A Carter, Political Theory of Global Citizenship, New York: Routledge, 2001, p 235.
10 L Desforges, ‘The formation of global citizenship: international non-governmental organisations in Britain’, Political Geography, 23(5), p 549.
11 For more information on the Sport for Development and Peace programme of the UN, see http://www.un.org/themes/sport/.
19 Sport for Development and Peace/UN, What Does Sport Have to Do With the UN?, at http://www.un.org/themes/sport/intro.htm, accessed 20 March 2010.
20 Right to Play, rtp@ubc, When Kids Play the World Wins, 2006, at http://www.ams.ubc.ca/clubs/Rtp/whatwedo.htm, accessed 20 March 2010.
21 International Football Association, International Football Aid Welcomes You, at http://www.internationalfootballaid.com, accessed 20 March 2010.
22 United through Sport, ‘Developing communities through sport’, at http://www.unitedthroughsport.org/, accessed 20 March 2010.
23 Sport4Peace, Welcome to Sport for Peace, at http://www.sport4peace.org/, accessed 20 March 2010.
24 sos Children's Villages, sos Children's Villages works toward the Millennium Development Goals (mdgs), at http://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/What-we-do/mdg/Pages/default.aspx, accessed 20 March 2010.
25 United through Sport, ‘Developing communities through sport’.
26 Ibid.
27 International Football Association, International Football Aid Welcomes You.
28 Commonwealth Games Canada, International Development Through Sport, at http://www.commonwealthgames.ca/portal_e.aspx, accessed 22 March 2010.
29 In his speech Kofi Annan argues that sport ‘at its best it can bring people together, no matter what their origin, background, religious beliefs or economic status. And when young people participate in sports or have access to physical education, they can experience real exhilaration even as they learn the ideals of teamwork and tolerance. That is why the United Nations is turning more and more to the world of sport for help in our work for peace and our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals'. Quoted in ‘Universal language of peace brings people together, teaches teamwork, tolerance, Secretary General says at launch of International Year’, UN press release, SG/SM/9579, 2004.
30 S Darnell, ‘Power, politics and “sport for development and peace”: investigating the utility of sport for international development’, Sociology of Sport Journal, 27(1), 2010, pp 54–75.
31 J Petras, ‘ngos: in the service of imperialism’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 29(4), 1999, pp 429–440.
32 F Manji & C O'Coill, ‘Missionary position: ngos and development in Africa’, International Affairs, 78(3), 2002, pp 567–583.
33 E Said, Orientalism, New York: Random House, 1978. See also B Heron, Desire for Development.
34 Wehbi et al, ‘Neo-colonial discourse and disability’.
35 Manji & O'Coill, ‘Missionary position’.
36 Black, ‘The ambiguities of development’.
37 sdp International Working Group, Harnessing the Power of Sport for Development and Peace: Recommendations to Governments, Toronto: Right to Play, 2008.
38 Black, ‘The ambiguities of development’.
39 Kidd, ‘A new social movement’, p 376.
40 S Darnell, ‘Playing with race: Right to Play and the production of whiteness in “development through sport”’, Sport in Society, 10(4), 2007, pp 560–579.
41 Baaz, The Paternalism of Partnership.
42 Right to Play, Sport for Development, ‘When the Kids Play the World Wins’, http://clubs.ams.ubc.ca/clubs/Rtp/whatwedo.htm.
43 Baaz, The Paternalism of Partnership.
44 Franz Fanon, cited in ibid.
45 Baaz, The Paternalism of Partnership, p 45.
46 Heron, Desire for Development, p 7.
47 Ibid.
48 Baaz, The Paternalism of Partnership, p 150.
49 Cook, Gender, Identity, and Imperialism, p 10.
50 Baaz, The Paternalism of Partnership, p 121.
51 Darnell, ‘Power, politics and “sport for development and peace”’; and R. Levermore, ‘Sport: a new engine of development’, Progress in Development Studies, 8(2), 2009, pp 183–190.
52 R Levermore, ‘Sport in international development: time to treat it seriously’, Brown Journal of World Affairs, XIV(2), 2008, pp 55–67.
53 Ibid, p 57.
54 Levermore, ‘Sport’.
55 Kidd, ‘A new social movement’.
56 Desforges, ‘The formation of global citizenship’, p 549.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid, p 566.
59 Ibid, p 567.
60 Petras, ‘ngos’, p 430.
61 Ibid, p 431.
62 Ibid, p 434.
63 See, among others, the analyses of SD Biggs & AD Neame, ‘Negotiating room to manoeuvre: reflections concerning ngo autonomy and accountability with the new policy agenda’, in J Edwards & D Hulme (eds), Beyond the Magic Bullet: ngo Performance and Accountability in the Post-Cold War World, West Hartford, CT: Kumarian, 1996, pp 40–52; and A Fowler, ‘The role of ngos in changing state–society relations: perspectives from Eastern and Southern Africa’, Development Policy Review, 9, 1991, pp 53–84.
64 A Guttman, Games and Empires: Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
65 P Alegi, ‘Sports’, in ME Page (ed), Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural and Political Encyclopaedia, Santa Barbara, CA: abc-clio, 2003, pp 558–559.
66 Ibid; J Brownfoot, ‘Emancipation, exercise and imperialism: girls and the games ethic in colonial Malaya’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 7(1), 1990, pp 61–84; and P Martin, Leisure and Society in Colonial Brazzaville, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
67 JA Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal, London: Frank Cass, 1988, p 153.
68 See O Willis, ‘Sport and development: the significance of Mathare Youth Association’, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 21(3), 2000, pp 925–849. In his analysis of the Mathare Youth Sports Association (mysa) Willis observes that youth involved in mysa can be used to empower local youths. Furthermore, Willis' research documents how the youths have begun to challenge the problematic attitudes of development workers and donors, who may not fully recognise the accomplishments, sense of ownership and successes of mysa. This study is central to an important, but separate, analysis examining how the recipients have gained and/or lost as a result of sdp programmes.