Taking sex off the sidelines: Challenging heteronormativity within ‘Sport in Development’ research

Introduction

We chose to begin this article with Jamila’s story (as experienced by the first author) to highlight the fact that despite a sustained effort by scholars in sport sociology to explore themes of sexualities (e.g., Anderson, 2002, 2005; Caudwell, 2006; King, 2008), homophobia in women’s sports (e.g., Cahn, 1994; Griffin, 1998) heterosexism and related topics, current SiD research fails to consider nuanced discussions of these same themes, preferring instead to impart a heteronormative frame of reference when considering experiences of inequalities, empowerment and sport. This failure has left us—in our past/present roles as SiD practitioners and researchers—with few available resources to support queer participants and stakeholders (such as Jamila) and also with no visible template for researching the complex interplay of sexuality, inequalities, sport and empowerment in the SiD field. As such, the aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, we document the heteronormative framework within SiD research by foregrounding the absence of literature on queer desire, relationships and subjectivities. We suggest that the prevailing heteronormative framework is related to three factors as follows: (1) limited engagement with themes of sexuality within research on international development; (2) few examinations of queer desire and sport in areas of the Global South; and (3) the emphasis on quantitative monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tools within SiD programming. We conclude this article by advocating for an expanded SiD research agenda that explores the complex sexual desires, relationships and subjectivities present in the SiD field. To this end, we offer several suggestions for researchers and practitioners who seek to challenge the heteronormativity in the SiD field.

Terminology

To begin, we establish our understanding of the key terminology we utilize throughout this article. We choose to use the term SiD to refer to the movement to use sport to achieve international development goals and social change. Levermore and Beacom (2009) organize SiD initiatives into six broad categories: conflict resolution; building physical, social and community infrastructure; raising awareness through education; empowerment; physical and psychological health; and poverty alleviation (p.10). This area of enquiry has other designations used throughout the academic research that we reference in this article, including ‘sport for development’ (SfD), ‘development through sport’ and ‘sport for development and peace’ (SDP). While a careful reflection on all available terminology is beyond the scope of this paper, we would like to briefly explain our choice to use SiD. In agreement with Levermore and Beacom (2009), we feel that the term SiD is more accurate and not overly optimistic as opposed to the terminology, ‘development through sport’, which suggests that sport inherently creates positive change and development. We use SiD as we also wish to avoid using terminology that instrumentalizes sport and oversimplifies the process of development and social change. That said, we do acknowledge and respect the choices imparted by other scholars, and we utilize their chosen terminology when citing them within this paper.

SiD is a relatively new concept in the field of international development. The idea of using sport for purposes of international development stems from a ‘recognition that the orthodox policies of “development” [have] failed to deliver their objectives’, and the subsequent World Commission on Culture and Development Report in 1995 that named culture as a vehicle for social and economic development (Levermore and Beacom, 2009: 5). Sport, along with theatre, dance and other activities, was considered one of these ‘cultural vehicles’ and has since been more widely recognized for its potential in international development contexts. To further spur the growing popularity of using sport as a tool for international development, the United Nations declared 2005 as ‘The International Year of Sport and Physical Education (IYSPE)’, thereby putting a spotlight on SiD projects around the world (Levermore and Beacom, 2009). This high-level support spurred increased funding and attention to the SiD arena, and sport is now frequently utilized to address numerous social and economic issues in the Global South, including HIV/AIDS, girls’ empowerment and community cohesion.

Within this article, we utilize terms frequently used in international development contexts. For instance, we deploy the term ‘Global North’ to refer to the area of the world that is characterized as being more economically developed and, as a consequence, has traditionally acted on the ‘Global South’ through international development initiatives. Although the terms Global North and Global South have been criticized because they draw a geographical binary that oversimplifies the diversity of marginalized and privileged people in both areas, we choose to use them for clarity and to avoid confusion for the reader, while remaining mindful of the problems associated with each choice (Hayhurst, 2011). In other SiD and development research this distinction has been made by using other terms such as ‘Western’ and ‘one-third world’ to refer to the Global North, and ‘developing’ and ‘two-thirds world’ to refer to the Global South (Hayhurst, 2011; Mohanty, 1986).

Finally, it is also important to outline our use of the term heteronormativity within the confines of this article. To do so, we rely on Eng (2006) who offers a comprehensive definition:

Heteronormativity does not equal heterosexuality, although it is strongly associated with it…In a heteronormative culture, heterosexuality is not only the expected and the dominant way of living, it has the status as the norm, and is often referred to as what is ‘natural’. In a worst case scenario, heteronormativity might breed homophobia or homonegativism and lead to violence, harassment, social stigmatizing and negative sanctions against marginalized sexualities. (p.51)

Queer theorists utilize the term heteronormativity to describe a framework that assumes the gender binary and heterosexual identities to be the norm, a pattern we suggest is visible within the SiD literature base. In this article, we also intend to use the concept to understand the absence of nuanced discussions around queer sexualities within SiD research and practice. In choosing to use the term ‘queer’, our intention is to ‘make visible previously denied and silenced “identities” and sexualities’ (Caudwell, 2006: 2). Although the term queer is heavily contested and evades easy definition, we feel it is the best option for capturing a variety of “deviant” and “silenced” sexual practices and subjectivities.

Sport in Development literature: The presence and absence of sexuality

To evidence our claim that SiD literature adopts a heteronormative frame, we reviewed essays included in edited collections on SDP, SiD and SfD. These collections included Gilbert and Bennett (2012), Houlihan and Green (2011), Levermore and Beacom (2009) and Schinke and Hanrahan (2012). We also read key manuscripts related to SDP and SfD (e.g., Coalter, 2013; Darnell, 2012; Forde, 2009) and reviewed relevant articles on the topic. The individual articles included in this sample were identified via bibliographic mining and via searches for articles related to gender and sexuality within SiD, SDP and SfD literature. We also reviewed articles that appeared in the recently launched Journal of Sport for Development (www.jsfd.org).

While engaging with the existing SiD literature, we imparted an analytical framework offered by McDonald and Birrell (1999) wherein we read sport critically. In outlining this analytical approach, McDonald and Birrell (1999) suggest that this strategy allows for the consideration of multiple dimensions of power (e.g., race, gender, nation and sexuality) within a particular sporting site. While their framework focuses on exploring specific sporting incidents or celebrities (and reading these as ‘texts’) we find the approach useful insofar as it allows us to read for both the absence (or silences) and the presence of queer experiences in SiD research. In this instance, we are also interested in utilizing this framework to help establish our claims about the heteronormative framing of SiD research, because it allows us to theorize on what power structures may be underpinning this framing of SiD research.

To date, we suggest that SiD academic literature tends to provide a cursory acknowledgment that ‘gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the [sic] transgendered’ ought to be included in discussions of human rights in sport—the category under which most SiD is located—but fails to move beyond the call to investigate more complex notions of sex, sexuality or queer subjectivities in SiD (Kidd and Donnelly, 2000: 141). Saavedra’s (2009) article on gender and sport comes the closest to actually acknowledging the heteronormative frame within sport programming, and we would suggest, SiD research, when she writes, ‘sport-in-development [projects] regularly take on reproductive health problems, especially HIV-AIDS, and STIs’ but she notes that they fail to acknowledge same-sex relationships and orientations unless one would include mega-events such as the Outgames or Gay Games under the SiD umbrella (p.129). In this statement, she does explicitly identify the fundamental issue missing in SiD research (as we see it), but she does not pursue complex themes of sexuality within the remainder of her article. Further, while Saavedra (2009) acknowledged the confusing presence and absence of sexuality within SiD projects (and research), she subsequently notes that this is not necessarily an issue pertaining exclusively to SiD, as initiatives and activism around lesbian rights ‘have not been embraced by the mainstream movement that is made visible in the UN/NGO development world’ (p.129). The place of sexuality within development literature and organizations is a point we return to later in the article.

In reviewing research that examines the SDP field or specific themes within SiD, we identified either the same cursory call (but no sustained exploration) for considerations of sexuality or a very generic call for the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) athletes in sporting spaces. For instance, although Darnell’s (2012) important text advocates for sociological and critical studies of SDP and pays ample attention to race, gender, nation and class identities insofar as they impact the experiences of SDP interns, his inclusion of sexuality is limited to the sentiment that sexuality ought to be considered in future studies of SDP contexts. Coalter’s (2013) recent text on the SfD field includes one mention of homosexuality and does so in a manner that offers little hope for practitioners or researchers in need of strategies for effectively addressing and researching the topic. When discussing the use of peer leaders as a means to address HIV/AIDS within SfD, Coalter (2013) notes that,

HIV and AIDS education is rarely restricted to technical/medical information, but is couched in a moral or religious discourse…it is unlikely that there will be a consensual view to be communicated…as many cultures and religions express strident opposition to homosexuality, which is illegal in 37 African countries, dealing with such issues may be extremely difficult or simply avoided. (p.118)

Although admittedly not the focus of his text, it is revealing that Coalter’s (2013) comprehensive commentary on the SfD field simply avoids any further analysis of the topic of homosexuality beyond the aforementioned. When sexuality is not ignored and is included in work emerging under the SfD umbrella, the topic is often discussed in general terms, as is the case with Ravel’s (2012) essay entitled, ‘Making space for gay participants’. The content of this article provides a general discussion on issues facing (mostly elite) LGBT athletes and offers suggestions for researchers and practitioners at the end.

Our review of the literature suggests that the prevailing tendency is for SiD researchers to advocate for scholars to consider how sexuality is an important sociological dimension at play in the communities and lives of participants in SiD programmes. However, there are no instances in the academic literature of how SiD programmes actively interrogate heteronormative values and practices. This is the case in an article presumably devoted to a more nuanced exploration of sex and sexuality entitled, ‘Sport in action: Young people, sex education and HIV/AIDS in Zambia’ (Banda, 2011). Instead of offering a detailed examination of the sexual politics at play within the SfD initiatives in Zambia, our assessment is that the Banda (2011) relied on the strategic use of ‘buzzwords and fuzzwords’ (Cornwall and Eade, 2010) to sidestep the opportunity to explain how SiD programming works within a complicated sexualized, racialized, gendered and post-colonial sporting contexts. While Banda (2011) does allude to some of the complex sexual politics at play in a Zambian context (e.g., ‘When young people are faced with a plethora of questions about puberty, sex, HIV/AIDS and their own sexuality, the answers to such questions are obtained from several sources such as the scenarios depicted in Table 23.2’ (p.330)), a full investigation into these scenarios falls short. These same type of buzzwords (e.g., empowerment, health and hygiene, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, etc.) are often utilized in programming literature, which tends to obscure the politicized work around sex and sexuality education that many SiD programmes deliver.

Despite our concern with the overwhelming tendency for SiD literature to fail to reflect on its heteronormative frames of reference, there are examples wherein more complex explorations of (hetero-) sexuality have occurred, and we highlight them here as they do complicate the commonsense understanding of gender and sexuality present in most SiD literature. For instance, in an essay exploring feminist and postcolonial critiques of SfD, Giles and Lynch (2012) identify the ways in which a Global North funder’s ability to dictate the type of ‘safer’ sexual messages conveyed through a HIV/AIDS SiD programme can adversely impact the programme participants (p.96). In another example, Jeanes’ (2013) work in Zambia highlights the limitations of an HIV/AIDS peer education system that advocates the ‘ABC approach to sexual education: “abstinence, be faithful, use a condom”’, but insightfully notes that beyond the content, the peer education sessions provide a forum for ‘young people [to] discuss why it may be difficult to adopt safe sexual behavior’ (p.391). Jeanes (2013) includes a quotation from a participant who attempts to integrate her ‘increased’ knowledge of HIV/AIDS with commonly accepted sexual scripts for men and women: ‘I know how HIV/AIDS is caught and we discuss ways to protect myself but [we also talk about how] it can be hard for a woman to refuse sex with a man’ (p.396). While this article still relies on heteronormative frames, it does afford a more complex understanding of the challenges involved in SiD programming that seeks to ‘educate’ youth on issues of sexual rights and sexual practices.

Another example of a text that expands standard explorations of sexuality within SiD research is Forde’s (2009) work with/on young women affiliated with Moving the Goalposts (MTG), a SiD programme based in Kenya. Through multiple in-depth interviews with nine MTG participants, Forde (2009) learns about their families, their sporting aspirations, the future plans and, of note for this paper, their sexual lives, experiences and subjectivities. While their narratives operate within a heteronormative frame, the young women offer a more complex tale of sex and sexuality as they discuss their sexual desires, sexual pleasure and the sexual pressures they face. They also speak of the transactional sex of which some of them (and their peers) partake. Forde (2009) recounts that some of the girls in attendance at a MTG camp ‘mentioned that girls receive money after having sex…girls wanted to afford sanitary pads, soap, clothes, and many said that, because of poverty, their parents count not provide for these basic needs. As teenage girls, some were taking control of the situation, using the one asset they had’ (p.134). This practice may not align with the vision of ‘empowered’ girls emerging from SiD programmes and curriculums, and is likely the reason it is not discussed consistently in SiD research; nevertheless, it is an important dimension of these—and likely many other—girls’ sexual lives and needs to be acknowledged and more carefully considered within the SiD literature and on-the-ground programming.

In this section, we reviewed the existing SiD academic literature insofar as it considers issues of sex and sexuality and summarized representative examples of how these topics are discussed. Our review suggests that nuanced discussions of sex and sexuality are mostly non-existent, and when they do occur, they are rarely the sole focus of an investigation. Further, we have noted that most acknowledgment of sex or sexuality within SiD literature adopts a heteronormative frame of reference and silences any existence of queer experience in the SiD field. In the next section, we offer three explanations as to why this occurs.

Understanding heteronormative frameworks within Sport in Development research

In this section, we theorize that the heteronormative framework currently dominating SiD research (1) reflects a general absence of analyses of sexuality within international development research; (2) aligns with limited research on sport and sexuality in the Global South; and (3) bespeaks the prevailing concern for quantitative M&E within SiD. We explain each of these arguments in greater detail below and by way of conclusion, we offer suggestions for challenging the heteronormative frameworks within SiD research.

Quantitative monitoring and evaluation

While the arenas of both development studies and sport sociology have track records that do not provide favourable conditions from which to establish challenges to heteronormativity within SiD research, we also suggest that the current emphasis on ‘high-quality’ research and establishing the evidence base within the SiD field creates a climate that limits investigations into topics deemed ‘non-essential’, such as queer sexuality. Also, the veiled language included in discussions of evidence, evaluation and M&E often points to a positivist, quantitative orientation that can complicate the collection and analysis of stories (such as Jamila’s) that may not fit into prescribed research or evaluation aims or intended outcomes of SiD interventions. Further, it invariably sets up a tiered system wherein certain types of research methodologies are valued over others. As an example of this type of discourse within the SiD sector at present, we point to the introductory essay for the debut of the recently published Journal of Sport for Development, wherein the editorial team suggests that:

In a period of increasing austerity in countries that have typically provided the bulk of funding for the SFD sector, we believe its sustainability is closely tied to effective evaluation. We adapt a common mantra from academia in suggesting that SFD organisations must ‘evaluate or perish’. Only by applying rigorous research methods will the SFD sector establish adequate evidence to streamline its approach and survive broad contractions in foreign aid budgets…We hope that a deeper commitment to rigorous research and evaluation will promote the evolution of the SFD sector and make effective interventions more durable in the changing landscape of international development. (Richards et al., 2013: 2)

Reading between the lines suggests that the current SiD research and evaluation climate is likely to be readily dismissive of personal stories, ‘anecdotal evidence’ or even worse, ‘heartfelt narratives, evocative images, and quotable sound bites’ that comprised a part of the justifications for SiD in the past and into the present (Hartmann and Kwauk, 2011: 286). We believe an intense focus on certain types of evaluations set up to meet specific aims and agendas invariably shapes the SiD research that can and does get external funding, what types of research stories are sought out, and which voices are heard. In this current climate, stories such as Jamila’s have no formal mechanism to pass through to impact policy or programming on the ground; we are aware of no SiD M&E tool that actively explores the experiences of sexual minorities or attempts to measure the climate for such participants nor do we know of any SiD initiative that explicitly foregrounds its work with queer participants. This reality will and does shape the experience of queer SiD participants on all levels, and we therefore enter into debates around M&E and evidence within the SiD sector in order to make the case for more attention to—and the inclusion of—stories such as the one that began this essay (see Chawansky, 2011; Coalter, 2013; Forde, 2013; Nicholls et al., 2011 for more discussion on this issue).

Conclusion

The purpose of this paper was to highlight the presence of heteronormativity within SiD research and to explore why this may be so. While other explanations may exist, we contend that the absence of research on queer Global South sexualities within the sport sociology literature may help explain part of heteronormative frame. The other explanation offered in this paper is the burgeoning—but still underdeveloped—coverage of the topic afforded by development theorists. Finally, we suggest that the current M&E and research discourse within SiD research and practice contributes to heteronormative frameworks within the literature insofar as it dictates the representational forms through which evidence is counted and can be produced.

The telling and sharing of stories and realities by researchers, practitioners and participants is one way that queer sexualities could begin to become visible in SiD research, and this strategy aligns with more general activity around the power of personal narrative within queer activism. It is clear—but not inevitable—that quantitative M&E methods do not capture the stories of girls like Jamila, and we would suggest that M&E research works towards the inclusion of questions about sexuality and stigma of queer sexualities in intake questionnaires and programme evaluations. This would serve as a practical entry point for recognizing the existence of queer identities and the tensions that surround them. It can also be used as a starting point for discussion and internal reflection on the sexual politics within individual SiD organizations.

From the work of development studies theorists such as Cornwall, Jolly, Tamale and others, we can also take some key lessons and apply them to SiD research. Clearly, sexuality is part of the well-being that SiD-based programmes seek to address, and the discrimination against people with queer sexualities not only leads to poverty and social exclusion, but also maintains unequal power relations (Cornwall and Jolly, 2006). Not only do we need to move away from the traditional development framework of a heterosexual and patriarchal social structure, but we also need to investigate and make visible the experiences and stories of individuals like Jamila whose sexuality does not fit the heteronormative framework.

To conclude, we return to Jamila’s story and wish to emphasize that though it is presented as one young woman’s story, it is not an isolated incident. Throughout the past seven years, and varied work experiences within SiD projects around the world, the first author has had comparable exchanges with other young female athletes (Carney, 2012). Although their stories differ slightly in terms of context, their age and their position within the specific SiD project, the common theme is that these young woman are in search of a supportive friend or colleague who will listen to their story, acknowledge their worries and celebrate their happiness as they come to terms with new relationships, evolving subjectivities, and in some cases, more complex ideas about sex and queer sexualities. We feel an obligation to share Jamila’s/their stories in order that SiD research and practice begin to acknowledge the heteronormativity we have identified. This paper does not seek to accuse SiD organizations or individuals with whom we have worked of homophobia, but rather it draws attention to the heteronormativity of the SiD movement that contributes to the silencing of certain experiences, especially for young women such as Jamila.

Jamila’s story could take place anywhere, including both the Global North and Global South, because as Menon (2005) points out, ‘normalization of heteronormativity is at the heart of patriarchy’ (p.34). Although Jamila is forced to hide her identity from her family and greater community, many women cannot and as a result they face marginalization, shame and often violence. Jamila has found a space within her sports team where she can be herself and where she feels safe. While her team provides a small, marginal space of security, it is situated within a greater culture of heteronormativity and homophobia that needs to be contested in the same way that gender inequality, racism and economic inequality are contested. If SiD programmes claim and endeavour to address these social inequalities, we would encourage them to also reflect on how and if heteronormativity shapes their delivery. Further, we suggest that through the suggestions made in this article, SiD researchers and practitioners now have a point of departure from which to challenge heteronormativity within SiD research.