Equalities and Inequalities: Diversity and Neo-liberal Dilemmas

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This chapter looks at equalities and inequalities and at the policy field of diversity and social cohesion as particular aspects of the links between regulatory bodies and the bodies that are regulated. Sport has proved attractive to neo-liberal governments because it offers opportunities for promoting social inclusion, with the promise of a level playing field where all are equal and all that matters is playing the game by universally accepted rules. Sport might offer hope for social transformation and bring in those from the margins. As has already been suggested, a focus upon bodies and their specificities can be troubling for the embodied selves situated on the margins, who are the targets of policies of social inclusion and diversity; there is always the danger of being reduced to the body and to body practices at the expense of intellectual achievements and possibilities. Allied to this is the political conservatism that has been associated with sport. Sport is an aspect of cultural and social life that has strong links to conformist traditional values that might be seen to resist change. However, sport is a target of government interventions that have been targeted at social inclusion. This chapter addresses the strategies and practices of Foucault’s notion of governmentality, for example as applied by Nikolas Rose (1999), which includes those that have been adopted to promote greater social inclusion and cohesion through sport.