Transnational organizations and practitioners who use sport for international development often position sport as a unique option for tackling development challenges. While sport can be a tool for social change, the authors in this collection bring a critical eye to this assumption and offer new perspectives on the use of sport for development and peace (SDP) in local and global contexts. The book seeks to generate new dialogues and explore linkages for development and SDP researchers through considerations of sport’s potential to challenge and/or perpetuate key global issues and problems. These analyses consider the SDP work done ‘on the ground’ and interrogate the historical, social and political circumstances of these practices. The authors explore how best to examine, theorize, critique and potentially improve local SDP initiatives. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of both Development Studies and Sport. It was originally published as a special issue of the online journal Third World Thematics.

Sport and International Development offers a critical sociological analysis of the emerging Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) movement. The book addresses a gap in the literature by focusing on the social and political implications of sport on development. It is a timely and important addition to the series.

This book examines the ways in which sport for development and peace (SDP) offers an opportunity for entrepreneurship to take place through and within sport, and how innovation in the context of SDP contributes to social and economic value for underrepresented and marginalised groups and individuals. Written by a team of leading international SDP researchers, and featuring the voices of active SDP practitioners, the book examines the ways in which entrepreneurs seek to use sport and/or social innovation in and through sport to achieve their goals of social and economic development. It explores the strategies that SDP organizations and practitioners are utilizing in the current neoliberal moment to not only survive during economic hardship - particularly during the COVID 19 crisis - but also to thrive, drawing on important concepts such as innovation, risk taking, proactiveness and opportunity seeking. It also considers how nongovernmental organizations, companies, governments, and communities are working to tackle development issues in SDP using non-traditional forms of organization and management, such as social enterprise models. Combining cutting-edge research with reflections on best practice in the field, this book is important reading for any advanced student, researcher or practitioner with an interest in the sociology of sport, sport for development, sport management, development studies, social enterprise or innovation.

Debates around the ‘sport for development and peace’ (SDP) movement have entered a new phase, moving on from simple questions surrounding the utility of sport as a tool of international development. Beyond Sport for Development and Peace argues that critical research and new perspectives and methodologies are necessary to balance the local aspects and global influences of sport and to better understand the power relations embedded in SDP on a transnational scale. As the era of the Millennium Development Goals gives way to a new agenda for sustainable development, this book considers the position of SDP. The book brings together contributors from 15 different countries across the developed and developing worlds, including academic researchers and ‘on the ground’ experts, practitioners and policy-makers, to provide one of the most diverse set of perspectives assembled in SDP scholarship. Looking to the renewed development agenda, its authors explore theoretical, policy and practical dimensions that address the broadening geographical and cultural spread of SDP, the emergence of issues such as child protection within it, its increased capacity for critical reflection on practice, and its potential for new collaborative approaches to knowledge production. Through its combination of academically-led chapters paired with practice-oriented ‘responses’ it offers an important reconceptualization of SDP as a contributor to development policy, and opens up important new avenues for studying and ‘practising’ SDP. Beyond Sport for Development and Peace is therefore essential reading for all researchers, advanced students, policy-makers and practitioners working in sport development or international development.

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online. Sport, Gender and Development brings together an exploration of sport feminisms to offer new approaches to research on Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) in global and local contexts.

This book focuses on the major social and political forces that have shaped the ways in which sport has been understood, organized, and contested in an effort to engender social change. Integrating the history of international development with the history of modern sport, the authors examine the underpinnings of sport-for-development from the mid-19th through the early 21st centuries. Including both archival research and extensive interviews with more than 15 individuals who were central to the institutions and movements that shaped sport as a force for development, this book will be of particular interest to the growing number of scholars, students, practitioners, advocates and activists interested in the possibilities and limitations of sport-for-development.

Sports Innovation, Technology and Research gives an insight into recent research and design projects at Imperial College London. It presents the on-going development of a diverse range of areas from elite rowing performance to impact protection to sporting amenities in communities.Also included are descriptions of some of the latest innovations that have been developed as part of the Rio Tinto Sports Innovation Challenge, an initiative that tasked engineering students to design, build and implement Paralympic and other sporting equipment. It offers a glimpse at the breadth of creativity that can be achieved when human centred design is applied to an area such as disabled sport. It also shows the potential that design and engineering have to contribute to healthy lifestyles and the generation of whole new sporting domains.This book will be valuable for anyone with an interest in sports technology, including those in industry, academia, sports organisations and athletes themselves.