The present study explored the role of sport in citizen diplomacy efforts using the voices of Mexican participants involved with an international sport for development and peace (SDP) program between the United States and Mexico. Collectively, participants’ experiences and cultural perspectives highlighted the promising potential of sport to foster citizen diplomacy, while also emphasizing the importance of constructively critiquing such programs. In semi-structured focus group interviews, Mexican participants reflected on connecting with Americans through a sense of shared humanity, expressed optimism for continued and future partnerships with Americans in sport, and described the United States and Americans in idealistic terms. Reflection of these findings yield additional insight on how SDP researchers and practitioners can design and implement future programs to increasingly foster, and prioritize, equitable contributions across groups while also promoting and celebrating the strengths of each culture.

Menstruation impacts people around the world, yet this topic is shrouded in taboo, undermining our ability to understand experiences of menstrual health and well-being. Research and activism on menstruation experiences in the Global South has grown dramatically in recent years. However, menstrual health research in the field of sport for development (SFD) is largely absent.

The purpose of this study was to better understand the lived experience of menstrual health amongst adolescent girls in SFD, the impact of menstrual health education through SFD and in what ways SFD might serve as a platform for menstrual health education. The participants took part in four lessons on menstrual health through the National Organisation for Women in Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation (NOWSPAR) of Zambia. These sessions included sport-based activities, menstrual health lessons, and journaling with adolescent participants (n=79). The adult facilitators (n=3) also completed journal exercises. The data yielded three key themes: (1) understanding and learning about the menstrual cycle; (2) pain, discomfort and coping with menstrual symptoms; and (3) stigma, fear and embarrassment surrounding menstruation. We conclude that menstrual stigma is a root cause to many of the challenges girls face and that SFD can be an impactful environment for menstrual health education.

Recent literature has highlighted the need for trauma-informed programming and research in sport. Specifically, studies have noted the importance of developing trauma-informed approaches to sport for development (SFD) initiatives that work with victims and survivors of gender-based violence (GBV). The purpose of this scoping review was to: (1) examine the synergies between trauma-and violence informed physical activity (TVIPA) programs and sport for development (SFD) programs globally for survivors/victims of GBV; and 2) assess the implementation of TVIPA in future SFD programming for survivors and victims of GBV. Guided by Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review framework, we systematically reviewed three electronic databases: ProQuest, EBSCO, and Web of Science. Following thematic analysis of the selected articles revealed that TVIPA should be further explored in SFD programming as a possible approach for victims and survivors of GBV. Taken together, we suggest the need for trauma-and violence-informed SFD, especially: 1) for vulnerable SFD program participants; and 2) to better understand and prevent GBV experiences in SFD and sport more broadly. This is one of the first studies to explore the synergies between TVIPA and SFD, contributing to novel trauma research in the context of sport, development and physical activity.

Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua – “I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past” is a whakataukī (proverb) that illuminates Māori (Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand) conceptualisation of time, “where the past, the present and the future are viewed as intertwined, and life as a continuous cosmic process. Within this continuous cosmic movement, time has no restrictions – it is both past and present” (Rameka, 2017, p. 387). Thus, as we write this closing piece for the Special Issue: Indigenous Voices Matter to Sport for Development (SFD), it makes sense to return full circle to reflect on where the seeds were first planted for this work. In doing so, we are better able to consider the challenges faced, take note of the opportunities that have presented themselves, and be better guided for the future by those who have come before us.

This foreword brings together the theoretical analyses of Kaupapa Māori (Smith, 1997) and Decolonising Methodologies (Smith, 2021) alongside an extensive practice-based knowledge of Indigenous sport and Indigenous development in Māori contexts in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). We critically examine changing contexts and understandings of both sport and development and how those concepts have been applied to and for Māori in Aotearoa NZ. We argue that many of the taken for granted ideas about sport and development need decolonising, disrupting, and reframing within an Indigenous frame we refer to as Kaupapa Māori. This is necessary if we are to fully appreciate and understand how sport and development might work relationally for the well-being of any Indigenous communities and collectives. We explore the role and relationship between sport and development through four political contexts: (a) a historic context and the role of sport as an organized physical activity in an Indigenous society that held its own sovereignty, (b) an Imperial and colonial context in which sport as conceived and introduced by British colonisation was wielded as an instrument of colonisation, (c) a neo-liberal context in which sport as an activity of market forces, competition and privatisation reshaped the organisation of sport and development as a form of economic neoliberalism, and (d) a decolonising and Kaupapa Māori context in which sport has been reimagined and reframed in terms of Indigenous Māori development. The first two political contexts will be covered less extensively because more is known of these two periods, however, there are threads of important ideas that we wish to draw upon that inform Māori concepts of sports and development in the current context.

Over 30 years ago, Graham Hingangaroa Smith (1992) presented a paper titled “Tane-nui-a-Rangi’s Legacy: Propping up the Sky” at the joint New Zealand Association for Research in Education and Australian Association for Research in Education conference in Geelong, Australia. In this paper Smith argued that “resistance strategies developed by Māori people, ought to be carefully studied in order to identify the potential intervention factors” (1992, p. 4) inherent within a (Indigenous) Kaupapa Māori approach. In particular, Smith reinforced the need to learn from innovations with a view to the wider application of success indicators embedded within Indigenous responses. Such “radical action,” he argued, was necessary to intervene in the “educational crisis” that Māori then faced, trapped within a narrow range of existing mainstream schooling options. Three decades on, similar criticisms could be attributed to sport for development (SFD) initiatives with/for Indigenous communities. Indeed, our plea is for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers operating in the SFD space to take notice of the results and recommendations from the articles in this Special Issue.