Tipping the balance back towards emancipation: exploring the positions of Flemish community sport practitioners towards social control

Abstract

Current debates highlight the dualistic nature of community sport, which is shaped by both emancipating logics and controlling logics. Critical scholars have warned against the current prioritization of controlling logics over emancipating ones, as this might lead to instrumental approaches in which the vulnerability of young people is managed rather than tackled. However, little research has been conducted on the way in which practitioners perceive and act upon the dominance of social control as a value within community sport. In this article, we report on the findings of a qualitative study into three community sport initiatives in Flanders, Belgium. The data indicate there are small emancipatory moments within the daily practice of community sport. Based on these results, we propose a reconfiguration of the concept of emancipation from being a solid, utopian ideal towards being a search for moments where the dominant logics of social control are momentarily disrupted.

Keywords:

• Community sport
• social control
• emancipation
• transformation
• resistance

Additional information

Funding

This research project is subsidized by the Flemish Government Agency for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

This research project is subsidized by the Flemish Government Agency for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.