Sport for development and peace policy discourse and local practice: Norwegian sport for development and peace to Zimbabwe

Abstract

This article is an analysis of a Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) project. Specifically, it investigates how SDP discourses influenced by Western donors are translated and given meaning by the recipients in the social context where the intervention takes place. Through a single case study of Norwegian SDP cooperation in Zimbabwe, we demonstrate how practice at the informal local level does not always fit the project’s formal discourse found in policy documents and project plans, initially developed under strong influence by Norwegian donors. It is argued that when the attention is shifted from formal discourses of development to local practices on the recipient side, a more nuanced picture of development discourse appears. Recipient organizations or local project staff do not necessarily uncritically accept the formal SDP discourse imposed on them, but are able to translate, reformulate, resist or manipulate discourse through a process of transformation and contextualization.