This paper addresses the modern rubber ballgames of Middle America and traces their genealogy to before the Spanish Conquest. It follows a theoretical framework to register contemporary players’ point of view. On the field, the focus is on recent initiatives materialized in the Maya region of Mexico and Guatemala around the play of three games: chaaj, pok-ta-pok, and chajchaay. Studied from the social sciences and historical anthropology, to confront academic sources arguing the disappearance of the ancient rubber ballgames, it offers a transdisciplinary intercultural assessment of initiatives surrounding their play, emerging from indigenous Mayan communities in the recovery of a worldview that offers a balance between human beings and the natural world.

Indigenous games are rarely discussed within the sport for development (SFD) realm. Instead, even when SFD interventions are aimed at Indigenous youth, the focus is typically on the use of “modern” (European-derived) sport. We sought to analyze how mainstream and Indigenous media in Canada produce understandings of traditional Indigenous games and how, and if, media discourses reflect the idea of traditional games as a form of SFD. Using databases, we searched both mainstream and Indigenous media sources over a ten-year period from 2011 to 2021, identifying 23 articles pertaining to traditional games. Using critical discourse analysis, we noted the (re)production of two discourses in both mainstream and Indigenous media sources: Traditional games keep culture alive; and Indigenous youth can be “reclaimed” through traditional games. In concluding that similar discourses were produced about traditional games in both mainstream and Indigenous media sources, the manner in which the discourses were produced became a focal point for examination. The Western-centric sports journalism approach to traditional games coverage illuminated a strong SFD ideology within the discourses, despite traditional Indigenous games largely rejecting Western sport logic. Our findings suggest the need to appreciate the differences of traditional games from SFD practices for the purposes of cultural and youth development.

Through engagement with sport and physical activity, sport-based youth development (SBYD) programs aim to support the development of youth toward a positive sense of self, enrich their human and social capital, and enhance their personal skills, development assets, and competencies. The purpose of this study is to explore the role, programmatic strategy, and impact of sport sampling opportunities offered in a SBYD program. To this end, we interviewed 19 racially and economically marginalized youth, ages 10-17 years old, participating in an after-school SBYD program on the campus of a large university in the Southeast United States. Data revealed four themes (sampling sport, emotional management, development outcomes, and sports mentoring) comprised of 12 sub-themes. We discuss each against the backdrop of the racially and economically marginalized community in which participants live. Implications of our study can be used to help advance sport-sampling as a development intervention in campus-community partnerships, as well as expand our conceptual understanding of sport sampling.

Sport for Development (SfD) literature tends to focus on and value bottom-up, grassroots projects and realities, and criticize top-down (i.e., from high- to low-authority) approaches. This is also true when considering the intersection of sport and refugees. With millions of people displaced every year, a new perspective is needed to reconcile bottom-up and top-down approaches. In this conceptual paper, we provide literature that frames traditional and contemporary issues embedded in the refugee and sport domains with a specific focus on the top-down, bottom-up approaches SfD stakeholders adopt. From these stakeholder configurations, associated challenges, and complexities, we present a contemporary effort to challenge the ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ dichotomy; namely, by drawing parallels to the concept of clean minds (top) and dirty hands (bottom). We interrogate this discrepancy in two ways: first, through our experiences and interpretations as members of the Olympic Refuge Foundation’s Think Tank; second, by merging the “clean minds, dirty hands” concept with Lefebvre’s (1991) theory of social space. Ultimately, the clean minds, dirty hands dichotomy is better represented as a spectrum that interacts with Lefebvre’s theory in unique ways. Implications for influencing the sport and refugee movement, as well as the broader field of SfD, are discussed.

The notion of sport as a cultural offset has gained great popularity over the past few decades as a symbol of self-determination and empowerment for Indigenous peoples in Australia. This article involves an examination of Indigenous ways of using sport to culturally offset the effects of colonization from Indigenous perspectives. As such, this account offers insights into the elements that encompass Indigenous resistance: racial injustice; the enactment of a sometimes-negative oppositional culture; cultural maintenance; the reformulation of a positive Indigenous identity; the development of Indigenous political movements; and resistance to sport as a weapon in the arsenal of colonization. This consideration of sport as a site of resistance against the hegemony of the State is informed by Indigenous voices, including that of the first Author, so as to offer a more nuanced understanding of the intersections between sport, development, and Indigenous peoples in Australia.