Jordan Koch -DOCTORAL STIPEND 2010
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This study considers a range of stakeholder perceptions surrounding the rise and fall of a particular sport-related campaign on a First Nation in Alberta, Canada. This program was initially designed as a ‘gang intervention strategy’ and was highly popular during its first few years of operation. Over time, interest and funding in the program waned significantly. An extensive amount of ethnographic fieldwork and open-ended interviews with different stakeholders from the community (as well as a number of outside stakeholders) alerted the researcher to some of the tensions surrounding the rise and fall of the program. In a nutshell, this study explores these tensions and theorizes how they serve the interest of some peoples over others. The primary evidence for this study is theorized using Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of “Social Field.” This theory enables the researcher to address the unique (micro) political struggles taking place in this particular social space, while also paying mind to the way in which larger structural (colonial) processes get mediate through these spaces. The findings from this research have significant implications for the First Nation on which it takes place, as well as for other First Nations in Canada interested in using sport as a strategy for social change.
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