Youth Sport, Physical Activity and Play by Parker Andrew;Vinson Don;

Author:Parker, Andrew;Vinson, Don;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Sport, development and African culture

Elizabeth Annett and Samuel Mayuni

DOI: 10.4324/9780203147436-10

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is two-fold. First, it seeks to provide an overview of how sport has come to be seen as a mechanism through which international development might be facilitated. Second, it presents empirical evidence from one particular sport-for-development programme in southern Africa, ‘Sport Malawi’, in order to illustrate the impact of African culture on programme delivery. The empirical findings under consideration were obtained during a series of collaborative data collection visits to the Malawian cities of Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu by the two authors in the summer of 2010. This fieldwork yielded qualitative data from a range of community sports providers about the ability of sport to bring ‘development’ to individuals and collectives within communities. Ensuing discussion brings to the fore the ‘voices’ of local people concerning their experiences of sport-for-development provision and raises a series of key questions about the nature of work in this substantive area. The recent expansion of research in the sport-for-development field has been closely accompanied by mandatory monitoring and evaluation obligations. This has resulted in many researchers ‘trying their hand’ at reporting the impact of such programmes in environments of social, cultural and political complexity. It is particularly difficult for Western researchers to grapple with these issues in non-Western cultures and it is for this reason that the chapter is co-authored by a researcher from the West (EA) and one from Malawi (SM). The hope is that this approach will bring added balance and insight to the issues under consideration.

The chapter is structured around three main themes. The first addresses the current state of sport-for-development and contemporary debates surrounding how research in this area should be conducted. The second then briefly outlines the scope and remit of the Sport Malawi programme. The third considers the key aspects of African culture that continue to shape Sport Malawi, namely how sport is perceived within government, school-based education and faith communities.

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