Finding the missing voices of Sport for Development and Peace (SDP): using a ‘Participatory Social Interaction Research’ methodology and anthropological perspectives within African developing countries

Abstract

Whilst the SDP sector has in recent years continued to gain momentum, academic enquiry has largely continued to question its place within development agendas from the outside looking in, examining SDP at the operational and policy levels using methods that advocate the formal guises of research. Through extensive fieldwork experiences in Rwanda and Liberia, the authors propose a form of participatory research methodology for the purpose of empowerment, cultural understanding and insight beyond policy, practice and evaluation. Participatory social interaction research (PSIR) methodology is thus introduced and developed as an approach that looks beyond interventions, deconstructs SDP rhetoric, conceptualizes according to culturally specific contexts and allows narratives and qualitative data to drive theorization and academic discussion. We believe that an embodied, thorough and thoughtful PSIR methodology locates not only diversity within an ill-defined ‘African’ context, but empowers local voices to construct detailed accounts of culture within and outside of SDP.

Notes

1. Such as volunteer experiences (Darnell 2007), the effectiveness of monitoring and evaluation within SDP NGOs (Levermore 2011), the [lack of] proper training or experience with vulnerable populations amongst volunteers (Kidd 2008; Levermore 2008; Richards 1997), the absence of local participant involvement in programming (Beutler, 2008; Coalter 2013), the potential perpetuation of harmful colonial relationships of inequality through SDP work (Darnell 2010; Hayhurst 2011) and the creation of unrealistic transformative outcomes in many of the poorest communities in the world (Hoberman, 2011).

2. A term coined by Professor Fred Coalter for those individuals who lack critical consideration of sports.