Sport in under-resourced, underdeveloped, and conflict regions: an introduction

More than 600 Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) programmes are currently registered on the International Platform on Sport and Development (sportanddev.org) and over the past two decades, scholars and practitioners have taken a keen interest in understanding this field. This interest has been evidenced by a growing collection of special issues in journals (e.g. Sport, Education and Society, 2016; International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 2015; Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 2013; International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 2012; Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 2011), academic and scholarly books (e.g. Levermore and Beacom 2009, Darnell 2012, Schinke and Hanrahan 2012, Keim and de Coning 2014, Schulenkorf and Adair 2014, Hayhurst et al. 2016) and funding for programming (e.g. UK Economic and Social Research Council, SportsUnited, International Sports Programming Initiative, European Commission). A new journal focused solely on SDP has even been established (Journal of Sport for Development). These scholarly efforts have largely focused on and debated the merits of sport as a tool for development, diplomacy, empowerment and peacebuilding particularly in under-resourced, underdeveloped and conflict-affected regions.

Making sense of the contributions that sport can offer to such complex and multi-faceted issues requires understanding the various connections and meanings that individuals and communities ascribe to their sporting experiences. It therefore demands a creative, flexible and open-minded approach to methodology and research methods. In our own scholarship, we have sought a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of SDP activity, particularly in under-resourced, underdeveloped and conflict-affected regions, by focusing on and attempting to engage with the individuals and communities most involved and touched. For Meredith and Will, this has included working towards systems level change for SDP organisations (Massey et al. 2015), as well as an ongoing study analysing and deconstructing the role sport plays in the lives of youth who experienced multiple traumas and/or adverse experiences (Massey & Whitley, this issue; Whitley et al. 2016). Collectively, this work has highlighted various sport narratives (e.g. sport as a developmental asset, sport as a place of celebrated deviance) that can interact with and exist within complex systems, along with the need for integration of SDP programmes into ongoing and local initiatives to impact micro and macro level change. For Simon, this has led to investigations into the experiences of SDP volunteers (Darnell 2010a, 2010b) and engagement with various stakeholders and participants in south–south development cooperation based on sport (Darnell and Huish 2016). This research has shown that SDP type activity is influenced historically, ideologically and politically at both macro and micro levels.

In turn, these research experiences have led us – individually and as an editorial team – to reflect upon the importance and challenges of approaching and analysing SDP using qualitative research methods. In particular, such challenges stem from the desire to conduct research that is both rigorous and ethical, while doing so in ways that acknowledge the diversity of participants and stakeholders as well as the unequal relations of power that structure the field. Further, recent calls for increased rigour in the research and evaluation of SDP initiatives (e.g. Coalter 2010, 2013), coupled with criticisms of the process and politics of monitoring and evaluation (Levermore 2011, Kay 2012, Jeanes and Lindsey 2014) and cautions against neo-colonial or imperial approaches to SDP that may subjugate or colonise knowledge (e.g. Coakley 2003, Nicholls et al. 2011, Darnell 2014), confirmed for us the importance of methodological considerations in the field of SDP.

In response, this collection of SDP research offers a range of examples of, and insights into, innovative and diverse research methodologies that engage with individuals and communities within the SDP field, rather than make claims about them. In so doing, this collection suggests an opportunity to move beyond positivist (and even post-positivistic) paradigms and towards more direct consideration of the voices and perspectives of key SDP stakeholders (e.g. former/current participants, coaches, administrators, volunteers), with a focus on understanding the meanings such actors ascribe to sport, their sport experiences and their perceptions of the role of sport in promoting (and/or obstructing) development and peace. The purpose of this collection, therefore, is to promote sport-based research that focuses on or involves individuals and communities in under-resourced, underdeveloped and conflict regions, along with insights regarding how best to do so.

Given this, the first half of this collection contains papers that both challenge, and advance, methodological thinking in SDP. Collison et al.¹ begin this conversation by discussing the challenges inherent in multi-site, multi-researcher SDP projects. This includes, but is not limited to, understanding the historical-socio-political ramifications that come with an identity of [White] outsider, and the balance between more participatory forms of research that serve to ‘flatten power differentials and structures of inequity’ while keeping one’s ‘distance in the service of critical analysis’. While Collison et al. argue for a balance between participatory and non-instrumental research in SDP, Hayhurst suggests that researchers need to consider how multi-site SDP research might be more collaborative, participatory and mutually beneficial. In doing so, Hayhurst discusses the possible role of post-colonial feminist research in SDP that actively works against the colonising tendencies of international research. Building on Hayhurst’s call for ‘thinking about the alternative possibilities and methodological tools to carry out SDP research in ways that are attentive to the global and the local in more nuanced and complex ways’, Forde (a North American academic researcher) and Kota (a South African community activist) engage in a dialogic methodology focused on social change, hope and sport. Embedded in this dialogue are the tensions discussed by the aforementioned authors, as well as various other SDP scholars, along with a discussion of how academics may be complicit in ‘underlying structures which produce the oppression and inequalities that motivate the need for SDP in the first place’. Forde and Kota question whether or not SDP is a form of charity that abates discussions and actions regarding real social change and subsequently challenge researchers to engage in forms of authentic listening when engaging the SDP sector. In line with these recommendations, Young and Okada advocate for the use of life history analysis (LHA) as a decolonizing and authentic methodology in SDP, and model this methodology in providing a rare look into the history of Cambodian sport.

The second half of this collection contains papers that, we believe, are exemplary of Young and Okada’s statement that it is ‘possible to combine novel methods with critical analyses of sport for development’. Utilising a post-qualitative framework, Van Ingen presents a powerful display of arts-based research that captures some of the complexity within the lives of women and trans people who are survivors of gender-based violence. Her writing discusses how both boxing and art can play a role in making ‘difficult pasts comprehensible, if only in part’. Following this, Massey and Whitley present narratives from individuals who have undergone extensive and on-going trauma throughout their lives, and examines how sport played both a mitigating and amplifying role in their violent and/or chaotic upbringings. Similarly, Cowan and Taylor document how sport can facilitate both criminal behaviour and positive development through the use of LHA with a soccer coach who comes from a difficult past. In addition to these, Sobotová and colleagues show how participatory mapping can be used to examine changes in the perception of space following an SDP programme in a violent and relatively unsafe environment.

The final two empirical papers make strong connections to the methodological complexities raised by Collison et al. and Hayhurst. Specifically, Malnati and colleagues utilise a comparative case study to examine contextual and individual factors affecting the results of an internationally focused SDP programme. In doing so, they pay attention to both the local and global implications of international SDP work within a single study. Additionally, and within the spirit of this collection, Thorpe examines how youth engage in action sports across various post-conflict (i.e. Palestine) and post-disaster (i.e. Christchurch, New Orleans) sites, and how these grassroots movements can facilitate the expression of youth agency, creativity and resourcefulness in otherwise dire situations. Moreover, Thorpe examines how some youth interact with corporations and NGOs in and around SDP movements, and the implications this may have on SDP organisations in the future. Finally, we conclude this collection by offering our own thoughts on the need to understand the experiences of multiple actors within SDP movements and how this may lead to a wide variety of outcomes that will challenge scholars to engage in diverse and creative methodologies. We also discuss the use of various analytical tools that may help to learn from the past and to push knowledge forward in order to affect positive change in the future.

In summary, the range of papers in this collection speaks to the diversity of the broader SDP field, and so we encourage readers to draw on these insights in order to think critically about the fields of enquiry, the philosophical underpinnings and the methodologies utilised in SDP research, as well as the audiences engaged and topics explored. We suggest that particular attention might be paid to how social and political meanings are made in under-resourced, underdeveloped and conflict-affected regions, along with the ways in which sport is (or is not) part of such processes. In so doing, we hope readers will join us in considering how this collection can push the SDP field into more rigorous and methodologically innovative and diverse approaches to research and evaluation, while also engaging with actors in the SDP field who are still often spoken for or about, rather than with.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

William V. Massey
Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Health Professions, Concordia University Wisconsin, Mequon, WI, USA
[email protected]
Meredith A. Whitley
Department of Exercise Science, Health Studies, Physical Education, & Sport Management, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, USA
Simon C. Darnell
Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Acknowledgements

We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to Brett Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, for his tremendous support, guidance and leadership.

Notes

1. The papers included in this collection by Collison et al., and Massey and Whitley, were independently peer reviewed with the Editor-in-Chief of Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise, and Health serving in the editorial role to ensure a blind review process.