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Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8965-7426

Abstract

This paper critically investigates how historical colonial practices and capitalist structures continue to influence the roles, relationships, and spaces related to gender and race within Sport for Development (SDP) initiatives in Global South contexts. While sport is commonly approached as an avenue to promote positive youth development and post-conflict reconstruction, these discourses often overlook how colonial capitalist imperatives are perpetuated through sport, influencing gender and race hierarchies, oppressive relations, and the direct “Othering” of actors in Global South contexts (Samie et al., 2015; Oxford, 2017). Indeed, SDP initiatives are not immune from capitalist and colonial imperatives nor the racial and gendered oppressions inherent within (see also Oxford, 2017; Gadais et al., 2023). This paper examines SDP programming in Global South contexts through the decolonial feminist works of Federici (2004) and Lugones (2016). To do so, I draw on 1) current literature that explores SDP (and SDP initiatives) operating within Global South contexts to critically examine the coloniality of gender and its perpetuation in/through SDP; and 2) case studies featured in SDP research as a form of secondary data, which offers valuable, real-life insights, into how gendered spaces are fostered within sport contexts (Priya, 2021). Essentially, the paper seeks to reveal and critique the lingering effects of colonialism and primitive accumulation and how they impact the organization of sport programs and the lives of the people involved. By foregrounding decolonial feminist theory and praxis, I offer future lines of inquiry for SDP scholarship and practice.

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