Gender, Sport and Development

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Gender, Sport and Development
Budapest, Hungary December 2006 Martha Saavedra
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Contemporary Moment

• Sport and Development
• Surging popularity as a tool
• 2005 UN Year of Sport and Physical Education
• Embraced with enthusiasm by many
• Sport Federations
• Corporations
• NGOs
• Athletes
• In the North and South

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http//www.unicef.org/sports/
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Sport and Development
Selected Projects in Africa
Moving the Goalposts, Kilifi
CHILD - Christian Home in Liberating Destitute
Maendeleo ya Michezo (Tanzania)
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Sport and Development

• Projects are emerging all over the place
• Exemplifying contemporary global networking
  possibilities they are not limited to official
  or established channels.

Kirinyaga, Kenya, 2006 Andrew Papworth was a
short term volunteer with the Kirinyaga Sport
Foundation an NGO established by Edith Munubbe,
a retired school teacher and widow.
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Linked by advocates to the 8 Millennium
Development Goals

• 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
• 2. Achieve universal primary education.
• 3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
• 4. Reduce Child Mortality.
• 5. Improve maternal health.
• 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
• 7. Ensure environmental sustainability.
• 8. Develop a global partnership for development.
• And with
• Peace, reconciliation and post-conflict healing
  added in for good measure.

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Sport and Development
Kofi Annan
Adolf Ogi, former President of Switzerland,
Special Adviser on Sport for Development and
Peace
Djibril Diallo, Director, UN New York Office of
Sport for Development and Peace and Sepp Blatter,
FIFA
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Gender, Sport and Development

• My project preliminary thoughts provocations
• Contextualize and Assess SAD
• Highlight the larger historicized framework
• POV - critical development and gender studies
• Evaluate specific programs and projects
• Best approaches and practices
• Political and institutional location,
  opportunities and constraints
• Advocate
• Am not be unbiased objective observer
• Am involved in SAD (Toolkit, Sport and
  Development Platform, Corporate social
  responsibility, University-based service
  learning)
• Africa centered, but not limited

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Gender, Sport and Development

• What I want to emphasize
• GSAD is hard and serious work
• Doesnt take place on blank-slate
• Requires several areas of knowledge
• Local language, culture, history, geography
• Sport-specific love of sport isnt enough
• Organizational, business, managerial
  entrepreneurial skills
• People skills it is all about the people
  involved
• Is inherently political, and thus potentially
  contentious and risky
• Resources are being mobilized and created for
  change (a la CLR James), hence this is about
  Power, and
• Disrupting current distributions of power.

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Gender, Sport and Development

• Case study in progress
• Moving the Goalposts, Kilifi, Kenya, mtgk.org

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Context - Sport and Development

• Historical Context
• Not new that sport might be directed towards
  achieving ulterior social outcomes.
• History of modern sport
• Links with rise of modern state
• Concern with physicality of agents and general
  population
• Readiness for war
• Hygiene and health
• Sport and social movements
• Muscular Christianity
• YMCA

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Context - Sport and Development

• Modern Sport in Global South
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Used as tool of change and discipline
• Controlled to avoid subversion and resistance
• Western forms of sport were adopted, adapted,
  modified, ignored and rejected by colonial
  subjects
• Hesitate on notion of dissemination
• Suggest not disseminated so much it as parallel
  emergence as well as some visceral links with
  colonialism, imperialism and global capitalism.
• e.g. high jumping techniques, gusimbuka-urukiramen
  de and Ernst Jokl (Bale, Imagined Olympians,
  2002)
• International mode of sport dominated by and
  signifying the West.

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Context - Sport and Development

• Sport follows many trajectories
• local influences impact evolution of sport in one
  place, later re-inscribed elsewhere.
• Still - Western hegemony of institutions and
  structure remains
• though not without regular and continued
  contestation.
• As such, it carries historical and cultural
  baggage

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Context some baggage at the hegemonic core

• Gendered systems of sport in global North
• Hegemonic heterosexual hyper-masculinity
• situated within a consumerist, individualistic
  ethos
• Posited against any homosexual visibility
• Rules out muscular femininity
• In a binary and exclusive definition of sexuality
• Womens pursuit of sport
• Possible, but peripheral and always problematic
• Challenge to hegemonic norms of sexuality

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Context some baggage at the hegemonic core

• Gendered systems of sport in global North
• Hegemonic heterosexual hyper-masculinity
• situated within a consumerist, individualistic
  ethos
• Posited against any homosexual visibility
• Rules out muscular femininity
• In a binary and exclusive definition of sexuality
• Womens pursuit of sport
• Possible, but peripheral and always problematic
• Challenge to hegemonic norms of sexuality

Is this true everywhere, at all times?
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Sport and Development

• Reiterate
• Not new that sport should be used for social,
  political, economic goals.
• Concern
• Ahistoricism of current articulation reflects an
  unstated (unconscious?) assumption that sport is
  apolitical
• Also reflects uncritical belief that sport is
  inherently good.
• Or in a more complicated iteration our sport
  is good and can be cordoned off from that which
  is bad.

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Sport and Development

• Problems in any argument that considers sport a
  priori to be a force of good(R. Giulianotti,
  2004)
• Functionalist sport meets crucial social
  needs
• But sport can also be dysfunctional
• Sport Evangelists neo-colonial repositioning,
  moving impulse from home to overseas
• Skewed to youth (young men) what of other
  populations?
• What of women and elderly? What is addressed
  here
• Cross-cultural politics of sport humanitarianism

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Sport and Development

• Problems in any argument that considers sport a
  priori to be a force of good(R. Giulianotti,
  2004)
• Cross-cultural politics of sport humanitarianism
• Sufficient dialogue between donors and recipients
  when aid is offered?
• Empowerment of recipients?
• Ownership of projects?
• Dynamics of power and meaning behind
  cross-cultural cooperation between donor and
  recipients?

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Sport and Development

• Development Aid and the Gift
• Hattori (2003)
• Reciprocity expected?
• Unequal power?
• Confirms status on giver?
• Mechanism of consent
• Affirms current logic of development assistance
  and unequal relations.
• Infuse capitalist conditions with ethical meaning
• Moral regulations

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Sport and Development

• Gift versus entertainment expenses
• FIFAs humanitarian budget
• 907,000 (2003)
• FIFAs budget for inner circle for six weeks in
  Paris in 1998 World Cup finals
• 5,000,000.
• From Giulianotti (2004)

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Sport and Development

• Point on Aid in Africa in particular
• In many global fora the African present
  represents what Mathers and Hubbard have called
  emaciated modernity, where global capitalism
  has failed to transform, thus triggering
  sympathy, a burden of responsibility to care
  about Africa and contributing to the just
  notions of humanitarian aid and the regime of the
  NGO.
• Mathers and Hubbard on Survivor Africa (2004)

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Sport and Development

• Is this particularly an American problem?
• e.g., Mathers and Hubbard on Survivor Africa
• Africa is often dismissed in popular media as out
  of time and a failed project. We assert, however,
  that Survivor Africa places an imagined Africa as
  central to an emerging discourse of a
  humanitarian American empire, not a footnote to
  it, and that the history that makes this
  neo-liberal utopia possible is located in earlier
  colonial representations of Africa. Although this
  empire of the present cites these colonial
  images, it differs significantly in its mode of
  operation and ideal subject. The neo-liberal
  utopia that seeks to mediate Americas relations
  with much of the rest of the world is just as
  needful of discourses of humanitarianism as the
  empires of the 19th century. But while the
  Europeans sent missionaries and scientists to
  pave the way for their commercial enterprises,
  Americans send NGOs and development agencies.
  2004 p. 445

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Gender and Sport outside the west

• External and Global influences
• (global does not mean external)
• Codes practiced
• Discourse, practice and policy affecting gender
• FA Ban on womens football, 1921-1971, direct
  effect on British colonies.
• FIFA and IOC mandates on gender inclusion and
  target expenditures
• Corporate promotions, sponsorships and marketing
• image of female athlete, female event (Womens
  World Cup)
• Corporate production commodity chains and labor
  practices (sweatshops)

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Gender, Sport and Development

• Different notions of body and mind
• Value of physical activity?
• China
• Sport historically not male preserve
• For Imperial bureaucracy, elite education
  emphasized mind over body
• Sport there better suited to women and
  lower-classes
• Sudan
• Women from good Muslim families should not labor
• Senegal preferred female body types
• Drianke socially powerful urban woman
• Disquette upwardly mobile, young urban woman.
• Note Contemporary increase in preference for
  polygamy among this group in Dakar. (Mills, 2006)
  Another variant of third wave?

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Gender, Sport and Development

• Valences are just different
• International success in sport trumps any
  reluctance to honor women
• Thus many accomplished female athletes are heros
  in their home-countries
• Acceptance and promotion of recent female boxing
  extravaganza in Nairobi The Africans versus the
  Americans
• Daily Nation featured many more articles on
  womens sports than average US paper. Even
  features on local Mombasa Womens Football
  League, in which MTG Super team plays.

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Gender, Sport and Development

• Gender not always (most) limiting factor
• Education, class, age-group, marriage status
• Female elite in Sudan tennis, equestrian sport
• A few instances of women as referees in male
  sports
• Basketball, football and wrestling in Senegal
• Football in Kenya
• More then in established male sports in the US.
• Womens basketball as one of most popular
  spectator sports in Senegal.
• Likewise with womens volleyball in Peru
  (previously)

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Gender, Sport and Development

• Nevertheless, assuming
• At least some association between sport and
  masculinity, and
• Gendered expectations that privilege male access
  to organization and practice of sport
• Then, can postulate that female sport continues
  to be transgressive and potentially
  revolutionary,
• Disrupting received notions about gender roles,
  and allowing for new possibilities with positive
  spillovers for women in other social arenas.

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Gender, Sport and Development

• Sample of projects that have explicit gender
  agenda
• (from Sport and Development International
  Platform project database, sportanddev.org,
  accessed April 5, 2006)

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Gender, Sport and Development

• Most projects are not just about sport.
• They have explicit goals outside of sport.
• Tackling very specific local problems.
• Poverty, un(der)employment, weak/absent
  infrastructure
• Family dislocation/dysfunction
• Illiteracy and/or Schooling obstacles
• Sexual violence (rape, incest)
• Child labor/human trafficking
• STIs, HIV-AIDs, other diseases
• Drugs use and trafficking
• Limited rights and/or limited knowledge of rights
• War, famine, environmental degradation, etc.etc.

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Gender, Sport and Development

• Mobilizing people and resources through sport
  presumed mechanisms of change
• Awareness via themed tournament and other events
• Captive audience for add-on events
• Capacity building through organizing sport
• Life skills through practice of sport
• Health benefits through practice of sport
• Demonstration effect - Tunaweza!
• Especially valuable in changing essentialist
  perceptions and assumptions (about gender,
  able-bodiedness, caste, class, etc.)

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Gender, Sport and Development

• Case study in progress
• Moving the Goalposts, Kilifi, Coast Province Kenya

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Kilifi, Kenya - context

• Kilifi, north of Mombasa
• one of the least developed districts in Kenya
• Around 8 are infected with HIV/AIDS, higher than
  national average
• 66 of the population live below the poverty line
  
• (MTG 2005 Annual Report)
• Population mostly Mijikenda, also Swahili and
  other ethnic groups
• Mijikenda family power lies at intersection of
  patriarchy and gerontocracy
• Patrilocal, with polygyny possible
• Wives move in with husbands extended family on
  homestead
• Senior male elders control major resources
• Land, trees, household property
• Married women under direct control of both
  patrilineage elders and their wives.
• Womens usufructory rights to land and some tree
  crops
• increasingly circumscribed by scarcity and
  adoption of individualizing principles of
  national land tenure reform.
• (Ciekawy, 1999)

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Kilifi, Kenya - context

• Economy Agriculture and Tourism
• Agricultural production doesnt produce enough
  income
• Women - agricultural labor
• Most households reliant on wage income of young
  and middle-aged men
• Generational struggles between men common
• conflict often deflected onto women, especially
  younger women who have married into group.
• Womens cash income options
• Rural based women have few opportunities to earn
  cash income.
• Rural-urban, urban women without education sell
  vegetables or palm thatch in market, maids,
  construction, prostitution
• (Ciekawy, 1999)
• Holiday destination for foreigners and wealthy
  Kenyans

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Kilifi, Kenya - context

• Current conditions of poverty
• ? stress on families
• Dislocated, dissolving
• Dysfunctional
• Pervasive sense of precariousness of survival
• This stress may account for
• Extensive (increased?) domestic and sexual
  violence (a research question)
• Alcohol related abuse

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Kilifi, Kenya - context

• Education
• Primary school is free, but
• You must pay for
• Books
• Uniform
• Food
• Transportation
• Secondary school is not free
• Most are boarding schools
• Cost is out of reach for many families, even if
  girls do pass exams with sufficiently high scores

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Kilifi, Kenya - context

• Womens power is circumscribed
• Early marriages and teenage pregnancies are
  common for young women
• Teenage girls show the highest rates of new HIV
  infection in Kenya
• Poor women in Kilifi District have the lowest
  rates of both literacy (26.8) and school
  enrollment (54.4) in Kenya.
• There are very few women leaders and decision
  makers in Kilifi
• (MTG 2005 Annual Report)
• Although
• Women do voice their complaints and can use
  gossip and divination among other means to
  address their concerns.
• Historical role model?
• Mektalili, female diviner and leader of 1914
  Giriama war against the British colonialists
• (Ciekawy, 1999)

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Moving the Goalposts

• History
• Begun in September 2000 by Sarah Forde Owuor, and
  local educational and development officers
• From 1 to 5 staff members in 2005, including a
  project coordinator with extensive development
  experience.
• Significant volunteer work from advisory board,
  UK based supporters and from participants
  themselves.
• Funding from Ford Foundation, Plan International,
  Alistair Berkley Trust among others.

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Moving the Goalposts

• Focus
• Mobilizing and empowering girls and women through
  football
• Developing their self-esteem, confidence teamwork
  and organization skills
• Peer education on reproductive health and problem
  solving
• Capacity-building in community through developing
  skills of individuals

By MTGK photographer, Salma Ali
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Gender, Sport and Development

• Major problems as identified by girls
• Identified in informal conversations
• How to find school fees
• Necessity of bringing home income to share with
  family
• Eating Where will their food come from? (lack
  of cash to eat out or provide for themselves)
• Issued raised during MTG visits to schools
• STIs, wife beating, rape, incest

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Moving the Goalposts

• Program
• Football
• Teams, leagues, tournaments and commemorative
  events
• Organized by girls committees
• Training referees and coaches
• Peer Education and mobile video shows
• Topics
• Reproductive health
• Adolescence
• Menstruation
• HIV-AIDS and STIs
• Decision making, Assertiveness
• Problem-solving
• Girls develop skits, poems and raps to deliver
  message
• Training in public speaking

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Moving the Goalposts

• Program - continued
• Community involvement
• Volunteering at orphanages
• Monitoring and Evaluation
• Participatory, emphasis on process, though
  outcome is important
• Life Stories project
• Organizational, Business, Management Skill
  Development
• Training (peer education, office and computer
  skills, curriculum development)
• Volunteer work experience with MTG, in field, in
  office
• Educational support (beginning)

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Moving the Goalposts

• Outcomes
• Survived 5 years and has grown
• Increased number of players and teams, sustained
  league play, formation of super team, media
  exposure, newsletter, web-site (www.mtgk.org)
  successful fund-raising, developed robust
  governing structure and volunteer network
• Participatory M E process currently underway
  Impact of specific programs

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Moving the Goalposts

• Challenges
• Working with current infrastructure
• Transportation (!!!!!)
• Difficulties in carrying out daily activities,
  practices, games, peer education
• Cost, reach, reliability, safety
• Kenyan Football Federation
• In disarray
• Few options for girls who want to continue with
  football (and they do!)
• Other NGOs entering field
• Collaborators?
• Communications?
• Communications by and with girls
• Confidence increased locally and among
  themselves, but not necessarily in other settings
• Their expectations dependency syndrome

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Gender, Sport and Development

• Reiterate what I want to emphasize
• GSAD is hard and serious work
• mundane and banal is important
• Doesnt take place on blank-slate
• Requires several areas of knowledge
• Local language, culture, history, geography
• Sport-specific love of sport isnt enough
• Organizational, business, managerial
  entrepreneurial skills
• People skills it is all about the people
  involved
• Is inherently political, and thus potentially
  contentious and risky
• Resources are being mobilized and created for
  change (a la CLR James), hence this is about
  Power, and
• Disrupting current distributions of power.

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Gender, Sport and Development

• And it is underway and going to happen regardless

New sports project in Kirinyaga, Kenya (Central
Province).