Online defence: Sport for development and peace - investigating the field

Join Mariann Bardocz-Bencsik as she defends her doctoral dissertation, titled "Sport for development and peace - investigating the field." Mariann is a student at the University of Physical Education, Hungary. An abstract of her dissertation can be found here. 

The dissertation investigates the global sport for development and peace (SDP) field, with a special focus on Hungary. The objective of the PhD thesis is to explore the historical growth and current spread of the SDP community around the globe; to get to know the stakeholders of the sector and their challenges; to explore high-profile athletes’ involvement in SDP, and to present the current situation in Hungary with regards to using sport as a tool for development.

Bourdieu’s field theory was used as the theoretical basis of the research, whereas several conceptual frameworks were also applied, namely neocolonialism, Coalter’s ‘sport plus’ and ‘plus sport’ concepts and his sport for development programme theory, and the ‘development celebrity’ and ‘star/poverty space’ concepts. During the research, qualitative methods (in-depth interviews, n=15, survey, n=30) and a quantitative method (desk research) were applied.

The research results indicate that the global SDP community has been continuously growing since 1993, and this growth has been affected by some milestones in the international policy context and institutionalisation. Currently, SDP initiatives run on all continents by a multitude of types of organisations and their networks, including sport and development organisations; both governmental and non-governmental organisations, however, the involvement of the corporate sector is limited. The challenges of these stakeholders are numerous, including the misunderstanding of the role of sport in development and peace-related operations, management-related problems – including the ones coming from the neocolonial approach to SDP – and scarce funding. High-level athletes’ involvement as ambassadors is a way to promote SDP at large and specific initiatives, but several conditions are needed for the athletes to be meaningful contributors to SDP.

An outlook to Hungary shows that the concept of SDP is not present in official policy documents, neither in work on the community level. Nonetheless, there is a handful of projects in Hungary that can be qualified as SDP, but they do not participate in the global SDP network. The candidate’s suggestion based on her research findings is that potential Hungarian SDP stakeholders shall familiarise themselves with the concept of SDP and utilise its potential. It could be done by building cross-sectoral partnerships involving stakeholders of the sport and development sectors, both from the governmental and non-governmental sphere.

The event will be held on Microsoft Teams and is open to the public upon completing a registration form. The form is in Hungarian, although the presentation is in English. For the first question, type in your name, and type in your email address for the second. You can find the form here. You will then receive a message in Hungarian acknowledging your registration. You will receive an e-mail from Microsoft Teams with the link to attend the event.