Archives for January, 2024

From Sport for to Sport as Sustainability: Confronting the climate crisis in sport for development

Recently, there have been calls to understand better the relationship between sport and climate change, and to communicate the severity of the climate crisis to as wide an audience as possible. However, given the current climate crisis, we argue that the challenge facing the Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) sector is not to know more about climate change and the place of sport therein, but to imagine a better future and what to do to get there. In this paper, we discuss some specific ideas and approaches that SDP stakeholders might take in doing so. Specifically, we argue for moving beyond the idea of SDP as a tool for responding to or promoting environmental sustainability, as articulated in some policies and frameworks including the Sustainable Development Goals, and to move instead towards a reconceptualization of SDP as itself an ecological endeavor. In so doing, we draw on contemporary ecological notions like the New Climatic Regime and Buen Vivir, that can help to position sport and SDP not as a solution to the climate crisis, but as a fundamental aspect of ecological life on Earth in the years ahead.

Decolonizing Sport for Development Through Integration of Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy

Indigenous voices are an emerging area of interdisciplinary research and praxis within sport for development (SFD). However, the growing body of literature on SFD indicate program curriculums can conflict with Indigenous ways of knowing, which can undermine cultural sustainability and revitalization. The purpose of this commentary is therefore to reflect on contemporary SFD programming through the lens of Indigenous knowledge and pedagogical practices. In doing so, we identify strategies and practices to scaffold into existing SFD programs and policy. Such pedagogical strategies and practices accomplish two objectives: (1) adding to the growing corpus of literature on community-oriented praxis and (2) provide recommendations for strategic implementation of Indigenous knowledge to facilitate structuring Indigenous pedagogies in program development. These strategies and practices are informed by our own culture and ethnic backgrounds, an Oglala Lakota and Kenyan-Kalenjin-Keiyo, enculturated into a Eurocentric pedagogy which guides our positionality.