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Sport in under-resourced, underdeveloped, and conflict regions: an introduction

More than 600 Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) programmes are currently registered on the International Platform on Sport and Development (sportanddev.org) and over the past two decades, scholars and practitioners have taken a keen interest in understanding this field. This interest has been evidenced by a growing collection of special issues in journals (e.g. Sport, Education and Society, 2016; International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 2015; Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 2013; International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 2012; Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 2011), academic and scholarly books (e.g. Levermore and Beacom 2009, Darnell 2012, Schinke and Hanrahan 2012, Keim and de Coning 2014, Schulenkorf and Adair 2014, Hayhurst et al. 2016) and funding for programming (e.g. UK Economic and Social Research Council, SportsUnited, International Sports Programming Initiative, European Commission). A new journal focused solely on SDP has even been established (Journal of Sport for Development). These scholarly efforts have largely focused on and debated the merits of sport as a tool for development, diplomacy, empowerment and peacebuilding particularly in under-resourced, underdeveloped and conflict-affected regions. Making sense of the contributions that sport can offer to such complex and multi-faceted issues requires understanding the various connections and meanings that individuals and communities ascribe to their sporting experiences. It therefore demands a creative, flexible and open-minded approach to methodology and research methods. In our own scholarship, we have sought a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of SDP activity, particularly in under-resourced, underdeveloped and conflict-affected regions, by focusing on and attempting to engage with the individuals and communities most involved and touched. For Meredith and Will, this has included working towards systems level change for SDP organisations (Massey et al. 2015), as well as an ongoing study analysing and deconstructing the role sport plays in the lives of youth who experienced multiple traumas and/or adverse experiences (Massey & Whitley, this issue; Whitley et al. 2016). Collectively, this work has highlighted various sport narratives (e.g. sport as a developmental asset, sport as a place of celebrated deviance) that can interact with and exist within complex systems, along with the need for integration of SDP programmes into ongoing and local initiatives to impact micro and macro level change. For Simon, this has led to investigations into the experiences of SDP volunteers (Darnell 2010a, 2010b) and engagement with various stakeholders and participants in south–south development cooperation based on sport (Darnell and Huish 2016). This research has shown that SDP type activity is influenced historically, ideologically and politically at both macro and micro levels. In turn, these research experiences have led us – individually and as an editorial team – to reflect upon the importance and challenges of approaching and analysing SDP using qualitative research methods. In particular, such challenges stem from the desire to conduct research that is both rigorous and ethical, while doing so in ways that acknowledge the diversity of participants and stakeholders as well as the unequal relations of power that structure the field. Further, recent calls for increased rigour in the research and evaluation of SDP initiatives (e.g. Coalter 2010, 2013), coupled with criticisms of the process and politics of monitoring and evaluation (Levermore 2011, Kay 2012, Jeanes and Lindsey 2014) and cautions against neo-colonial or imperial approaches to SDP that may subjugate or colonise knowledge (e.g. Coakley 2003, Nicholls et al. 2011, Darnell 2014), confirmed for us the importance of methodological considerations in the field of SDP.