‘Stop mocking, start respecting’: an activist approach meets African Australian refugee-background young women in grassroots football

ABSTRACT

If designed well, sport-based programmes may facilitate increased wellbeing, inclusion and feelings of belonging for refugee-background young people. An activist approach is a pedagogical way to co-create programmes with young people in order to better address their needs and aspirations. The aim of this study was to explore the process of co-creating a sport programme with refugee-background young women and what they, and the researcher, learned throughout this process. The project comprised a six-month participatory action research in a football programme in Australia. Participants included the first author and 13 African Australian refugee-background young women (including the second author). Data collection comprised: (a) observations; (b) collaborative meetings; (c) photovoice; and (d) generated artefacts. Data analysis involved both inductive and deductive processes drawing on critical pedagogy and feminist studies. The first eight weeks were designed with the intent of identifying what facilitated and hindered the young women’s engagement in sport. We identified the lack of female representation in the sport programme as their main concern. Given what we learned from them, we co-created and implemented a coaches’ workshop where the young women shared the data collected and brainstormed spaces for future change. The young women reported that they learned that ‘together we have power’, and the importance of ‘speaking up to those in charge’. We suggest that an activist approach can bring a much-needed strengths-based model to sport programmes and interventions with refugee-background young people, particularly young women who have historically been silenced and sidelined in sport-based interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Sport coaching
• forced migrant
• football
• activist approach
• sport for development
• youth development
• participatory action research

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A strengths-based approach focuses on what is working well to support the growth of individuals and communities. It is a perspective based on the assumption that people have existing competencies and resources for their own empowerment (Spaaij et al. 2019; Thorpe 2016). This approach stands in contrast to a deficit-based paradigm that tends to focus on needs and problems to be fixed, or helping people avoid risks associated with negative outcomes.

2. Different to having an insider or outsider positionality, ‘in-betweeners’ are those who live within and among multiple worlds (Anzaldúa 2007).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carla Luguetti

Carla Luguetti is a lecturer in Physical Education and Health in the College of Sport and Exercise Science, and a research fellow in the Institute for Health and Sport at Victoria University, Australia.

Loy Singehebhuye

Loy Singehebhuye is a law student at Victoria University and a participant in the Football Empowerment programme.

Ramón Spaaij

Ramón Spaaij is a Professor in the Institute for Health and Sport at Victoria University, Australia, and Special Chair of Sociology of Sport at the University of Amsterdam.