Localizing Global Sport For Development

This book draws on a decade of research undertaken with young people and adults living and working in urban communities in Zambia to extend existing understandings of global sport for development.

The use of sport to contribute to various development agendas has gained significant global prominence since the beginning of the 21st century, aligned with a rapid expansion in the scale of sport for development activities in diverse contexts across the global South. Academic research and publications on sport for development have also proliferated. This jointly-authored book contributes to this field by offering an important departure from prevailing approaches to research and developing an 'evidence base' on sport for development. Drawing on nearly a decade of wide-ranging, multidisciplinary research undertaken with young people and adults living in urban communities in Zambia as well as those who work with them, the book presents a localized account that extends existing understandings of global sport for development. Offering wide-ranging historical, political, economic and social contextualization, it examines how a key period in the expansion of the sport for development sector unfolded in Zambia; considers the significance of varying degrees of integration and partnership practices between sport for development and development agencies at different levels; and outlines approaches to the provision of sport for development activities in various communities. Detailed examination of the lives, experiences and responses of young people involved in these activities, drawn from their own accounts, is a key feature of the book. Concluding reflections identify possibilities for enhancing understanding and improving research and evidence through methodologies which 'localize global sport for development'.

This book provides a critical approach to sport-for-development, acknowledging the potential of this growing field but emphasising challenges, problems and limitations – particularly if programs are not adequately planned, delivered or monitored.

Debates around the ‘sport for development and peace’ (SDP) movement have entered a new phase, moving on from simple questions surrounding the utility of sport as a tool of international development. Beyond Sport for Development and Peace argues that critical research and new perspectives and methodologies are necessary to balance the local aspects and global influences of sport and to better understand the power relations embedded in SDP on a transnational scale. As the era of the Millennium Development Goals gives way to a new agenda for sustainable development, this book considers the position of SDP. The book brings together contributors from 15 different countries across the developed and developing worlds, including academic researchers and ‘on the ground’ experts, practitioners and policy-makers, to provide one of the most diverse set of perspectives assembled in SDP scholarship. Looking to the renewed development agenda, its authors explore theoretical, policy and practical dimensions that address the broadening geographical and cultural spread of SDP, the emergence of issues such as child protection within it, its increased capacity for critical reflection on practice, and its potential for new collaborative approaches to knowledge production. Through its combination of academically-led chapters paired with practice-oriented ‘responses’ it offers an important reconceptualization of SDP as a contributor to development policy, and opens up important new avenues for studying and ‘practising’ SDP. Beyond Sport for Development and Peace is therefore essential reading for all researchers, advanced students, policy-makers and practitioners working in sport development or international development.

This book focuses on the major social and political forces that have shaped the ways in which sport has been understood, organized, and contested in an effort to engender social change. Integrating the history of international development with the history of modern sport, the authors examine the underpinnings of sport-for-development from the mid-19th through the early 21st centuries. Including both archival research and extensive interviews with more than 15 individuals who were central to the institutions and movements that shaped sport as a force for development, this book will be of particular interest to the growing number of scholars, students, practitioners, advocates and activists interested in the possibilities and limitations of sport-for-development.

This publication is the first of its kind, and the focus on sport and development policy is a new and exciting initiative towards developing a Global Policy Index in the future.ÿ

This volume is part of the early systematic inquiry into the analysis of sport as a developmental device. The book features an international roster of global experts. The chapters represent three groups: theory and philosophy, empirical research in 'on-the-ground' case studies, and those using circumspection to construct cases regarding evaluation.

Structured around key excluded groups, such as the elderly, ethnic minorities, the disabled and rural communities, this book offers an assessment of sports policy in contemporary Britain.