Governing by means of sport for social change and social inclusion: demarcating the domains of problematization and intervention

Abstract

In this article, the rationality of a sport-based intervention in Sweden promoting social change and social inclusion is explored. By examining statements made by representatives of the intervention, the article outlines the domains where problems are located and where social change and governing is presumed to take place. Discursive formations such as ‘the self’, ‘the family’, ‘the community’ and ‘the place’ are problematized in distinct ways and consequently formed as domains of governing intervention. These domains are made particular from the rest of society based on a presumed lack of integration as well as articulations of otherness. These deviances are pointed out and remedied within the frames of the established social order – it is, according to the discourse, not society that should be reformed, it is the individuals, the families and communities that should reform or adapt. Within the frames of such a discourse, major social reforms are neither conceivable nor desired.

Notes

1. This article is a partially based on, and contain an elaboration and synthetization of, themes introduced in Ekholm 2016.