Researchers´ Positiionalities in Sport for Development: "Global North", "Global South", but What is In-Between

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61989592%3A15310%2F24%3A73626943" target="_blank" >RIV/61989592:15310/24:73626943 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://obd.upol.cz/id_publ/333206830" target="_blank" >https://obd.upol.cz/id_publ/333206830</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Researchers´ Positiionalities in Sport for Development: "Global North", "Global South", but What is In-Between

Original language description

Since its emergence in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the sport for development (SfD) field has achieved legitimacy and popularity on a global scale. This field currently encloses studies undertaken at distinct levels (local, national, transnational, international) and in various locations of the ‘Global South’ and ‘Global North’. Scholars from the Global North conducting the research in regions of the Global South usually cover and reflect upon their research identities, knowledge production, and diverse methodological challenges stemming from their ‘Northern researcher’ status (e.g. Chawansky, 2015; Forde, 2015; Hayhurst, 2016; Massey et al., 2018; McSweeney, 2019), while being critically aware of Global North hegemony, policies, and norms (McSweeney et al., 2019). In general, their studies suggest that there are significant issues of power, privilege, and positionality intertwined within research, especially when the researcher comes from the ‘Northern’ region, and attempt to offer tools for reflexivity to democratize the research relationships (Kay, 2009). Both authors of this chapter during their research journeys turned to the ethnographic ap¬proach in order to capture the local voices of SfD interventions and their experiences. However, they found it challenging to work with the binary opposition of North/South and some¬times found themselves somewhere ‘in-the-middle’. In this chapter, the authors aim to offer a deeper conceptual and critical considerations over the diversity of meanings ‘North’ and ‘South’ may carry in the SfD field and beyond. This chapter aims to scrutinize and prob¬lematize the ‘Global North’ researcher identity by detailing experiences from two fieldworks, Brazil and Colombia conducted independently by two female researchers from Central Europe. The authors positioned themselves as white, middle-class, educated, heterosexual, unmarried women with the Czech language as their mother tongue who fluently speak the language of the research participants (Portuguese and Spanish). Yet, these identities and their interpretations were far from unproblematic at different moments during our field research. The authors argue that the Global North researcher category is not monolithic, defined merely by ‘English-speakers’, and exclusively in asymmetrical relationship toward southern research participants. The identity of a researcher from the ‘North’ is rather characterized by fluidity as gender, class, race, education, personal history, and language play out differently with different individuals and groups. This chapter drawing on first-hand ethnographic research indicating some of the language-related issues should contribute to the reflexive research on SfD and highlights the importance of carrying out the research in other than English language (depending on the regional/national specificity and colonial history).

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50902 - Social sciences, interdisciplinary

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Routledge Handbook of the Global South in Sport for Development and Peace

ISBN

978-1-03-266756-0

Number of pages of the result

11

Pages from-to

572-582

Number of pages of the book

724

Publisher name

Routledge

Place of publication

London

UT code for WoS chapter

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