The Social Politics of ‘Sport for Development and Peace’ (SDP)

Simon C. Darnell - Dalhousie University, Post-Doctoral Stipend 2008

Français

2009

There are six ways in which sport is now recognized and used as a tool of international development, primarily in the Global South: as a means of conflict resolution and social cohesion, in building physical, social and community infrastructure, in supporting economic development and capacity building, in fostering awareness of critical social issues related
to inequality, in empowering traditionally marginalized groups, and in improving the physical and psychological well-being and health of individuals and communities (Levermore and Beacom, 2009). The movement supporting these uses of sport has been dubbed the Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) Movement (Kidd, 2008). The participation dimensions of this movement are twofold: SDP aims to improve opportunities for participation amongst the world’s poor and marginalized, and the SDP movement affords opportunities for participation
as volunteers for young northerners, including Canadians often through service abroad.

What is not clear, at this point, are the ways in which the use of sport via the SDP movement responds to the broader politics of international development. Through interviews with
SDP stakeholders, particularly policy makers and administrators, and academic efforts to ‘mainstream’ sport into development studies, my research will support policy recommendations regarding the participation dimension of the SDP movement. Specifically, positioning and mobilizing sport as a development tool in response to inequality, as opposed to an act of charity, will support participation of persons in the Global South. Similarly, illustrating SDP’s political dimensions will better prepare interns for the political challenges and ambiguities (Black, in press) inherent in the SDP context.

References:

Black, D. (in press) The Ambiguities of Development: Implications for ‘Development through Sport.’ Sport in Society.

Kidd, B. (2008). A new social movement: Sport for Development and Peace. Sport in Society, 11(4), 370-380.

R. Levermore and A. Beacom (Eds.), Spo

 

2008

This research focused on the experiences of Canadian volunteers within the ‘Sport for Development and Peace’ (SDP) movement. In this movement, sport is formally recognized, by organizations including the United Nations, to hold a utility in advancing social development, particularly in Low and Middle Income Countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 former interns from Commonwealth Games Canada’s (CGC) International Development through Sport program. CGC’s program places q ualified candidates with a sport and/or health partner organization in an African or Caribbean nation for a minimum of 8 months to facilitate the use of sport and play to meet development goals. A theoretical framework informed by the sociology of sport and international development studies was used to investigate how and why sport is being used as a development tool and the socio-political challenges within the implementation of the SDP movement.

The results illustrate that interns often rely on traditional understandings of sport as egalitarian, meritocratic and a means of character building as the basis for its utility in development, notions that support popular rhetoric regarding the political transcendence of sport. At the same time, however, the results show the use of sport as a development tool to be deeply politicized, particularly given its susceptibility to the logic of contemporary neo-liberalism whereby underprivileged people are understood primarily to lack the means to participate effectively in market capitalism. Sport does not, therefore, overcome the political challenges of impact, benefits, and sustainability faced by international development more broadly. With this in mind, there is a need in the SDP movement for the development of policy (and critical pedagogy) that positions SDP programming as a fraught necessity given global inequality, not a process of northern benevolence or aid. Future research is also needed to determine how the mandate of SDP aligns within the broader politics of international development.

 

2007

Development through Sport’ (DTS) organizations, based in Canada, send volunteer interns to
developing’ countries to increase sport and play opportunities as part of the growing movement recognizing sport as an international development tool (Kidd, 2006). DTS organizations view sport and play as socially transformative practices that can, in some cases, contribute to development where other approaches have failed.

Despite the emergence of the movement, specific understandings of the utility, benefits, and
politics of sport participation within international development remain unexamined. In this study, semi-structured interviews (n=27) were conducted with young Canadians who recently
completed a DTS internship supported by Commonwealth Games Canada (CGC) and the
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). While currently in the analysis stage,
some emergent results are relevant to Canadian sport participation and policy:

First, despite the notion of ‘sport as a universal language’ that often underpins DTS,
understandings of the utility and benefits of sport participation in overseas development
programs are closely tied to interns’ own positive experiences participating in sport in Canada.
In turn, the DTS internship itself constitutes a (positive) sport participation experience that
impacts (and challenges) interns’ understanding of the benefits of sport participation abroad and at home. While participating in DTS offers interns an opportunity to (re)consider the benefits of sport participation beyond their own national, geographic, cultural, ethnic, and class-based perspective, the specific social context of the benefits of sport participation within DTS requires analysis.

Second, interns struggle to negotiate the cultural specificities of their placement community and
to situate the goals of DTS programs within the social, historical, and political context. Critical
perspectives on the global politics of international development and volunteering, therefore,
could be valuable to interns when preparing and training for an overseas placement.

SCRI 2007 Presentation Slides

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