Call for papers: Sport for Development - Opening Transdisciplinary and Intersectoral Perspectives

Issues related to development and sport often find themselves centre-staged within the broad field of social sciences in sport. However, this relatively young academic field seems to struggle to generate new fundamental theoretical insights about how organised sport can both act as an inclusive space and a vehicle for broad developmental outcomes.

Questions about how the field could go beyond the current state-of-the-art are seldom asked or discussed within academic debates (e.g., in dedicated journals and conferences). One possible reason for this state of affairs is a failure of sport scientists to critically engage with new theoretical developments in more mainstream scientific disciplines (and subdisciplines) such as, for example, sociology, educational sciences, economy, political sciences, gender studies, history or philosophy.

Linking sport research to multiple life and policy domains is vitally important and should, as such, include studies from a broad inter-sectoral perspective. This would also require a need for "different disciplines working jointly to create new conceptual, theoretical, methodological and translational innovations that integrate and move beyond discipline-specific approaches to address a common problem" (Sparkes & Smith, 2014, p. 242). Such a collaborative and collective approach has been described as transdisciplinary research and can lead to the development of new theories, synergies of methods in relation to sport and social inclusion (Sparkes & Smith, 2014).

This thematic issue aims to advance our scientific understanding about sport and development by adapting both a transdisciplinary and intersectoral perspective. We welcome papers from the broad applied fields of health, education, social/youth work, management, crime and rehabilitation, which focus on programmes, policies and broad issues in relation to sport and development.

In order to advance our scientific understanding of the field of Sport for Development (SfD) and propose future perspectives, we welcome papers (original research papers, short research notes, commentaries, book reviews) dealing with:

• a transdisciplinary academic perspective (i.e. openness with regard to the variety of scientific disciplines)
• an inter-sectoral perspective (i.e. openness with regard to the different sectors in the municipal administration/government/ngos)
• (contesting) the current research methods used within the field of SfD, and proposing new perspectives
• practices regarding cooperation in the field with multi-faced stakeholders, evaluative or descriptive studies
• the history of the research field of SfD (and the broader field of development studies) from its origin until now (= discipline formation)
• (contesting) the current (strategic) pathways within the field of SfD, and proposing new perspectives
• theoretical / philosophical contributions regarding the broad field of sport/play for development in the global north and/or south (i.e., social inclusion, community development, social cohesion, integration, personal development), and more

Instructions for authors: 

Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's editorial policies and to send their abstracts (about 200-250 words, with a tentative title) by email to the journal's editorial office ([email protected]) by 1 July 2019.

Open Access: The journal has an article publication fee to cover its costs and guarantee that the article can be accessed free of charge by any reader, anywhere in the world, regardless of affiliation. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and advise them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication fees. Institutions can also join Cogitatio’s Membership Program at a very affordable rate and enable all affiliated authors to publish without incurring any fees. Further information about the journal’s open access charges and institutional members can be found here.